


Dragonheart: Autumn of the Angels

by Aaron_ledgers



Category: Dragonheart (1996)
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Gen, Psychological Drama, Romance, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Teen Angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-28
Updated: 2014-01-28
Packaged: 2018-01-10 09:20:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 85,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1157950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaron_ledgers/pseuds/Aaron_ledgers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At a first glance, Autumn Fyre is a normal girl who attends a private Academy with her foster sister... but that's just what people see on the surface: her normalcy is nothing but a facade, a way of pretending that she's a regular girl. Even though she has absolutely no memory whatsoever of who she was before the age of six, she knows that she's not normal. However, despite being ridiculed every now and then for having yellow eyes, her life has turned out pretty good... especially since she was a homeless orphan only three weeks prior to her sparkling new life. However, her world comes crashing down all over again when a monster attacks her new family because of a secret she's been hiding, and when terror turns to tragedy, she makes a wish that sends her back in time. What's an unhappy, antisocial girl supposed to do when she suddenly finds herself trapped in the middle of a movie that apparently wasn't just a movie? How can a 'special' girl like her survive when the witch burnings have already started taking place in Europe? Well, that one is not very easy to explain...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

 

 

  **DRAGONHEART: AUTUMN OF THE ANGELS**

  
_  
"Ten thousand years ago…  
There was a man of honor and a creature of legend._  
_Two sworn enemies who formed an incredible alliance."_   

_"However, when evil threatened to Destroy their Kingdom_ ,  
_They learned that there is no Honor without risk..._  
_...and no friendship without sacrifice."_

_"This was the Legend known as Dragon Heart."_

_"However, this tale did not begin ten thousand years ago,_  
_with a man of honor or a creature of legend._..  
_It began in the present era, the year of 2014,  
with a lonely young girl who was more than she seemed to be."_

_"The story I'm about to tell you was the ground basis for the fictional movie known as Dragon Heart."_

_"This is a true story... and it began in the Autumn of the Angels."_

Written By: Scarlet Ledgers (Aaron's little Sister)  
Dedicated to: Aaron Ledgers

* * *

**Prologue: The Murder on Sycamore Street**

 

_The first thing she noticed was the darkness._

_It was pitch black but smelled damp and musty… almost like the air of an old cellar. It seemed oddly familiar to her, even though she couldn't recall ever being in such place. The mustiness of this void was also accompanied by a faint metallic scent that burned her nose… copper…? Or blood? The sound of water droplets falling into a puddle echoed from somewhere deep within the cold shadows, causing the hair on the back of her neck to stand up. Upon sitting up, she felt something soft slide over her bare shoulders and paused… she knew what it was... it was hair… yes, it was definitely her hair. She could remember that much despite the amnesia: her hair was brown, and extremely long according to her sister._

_Wait... sister?_

_Who was her sister?_

_Better yet, where on earth was she?_

_"Where am I…?" Autumn whispered, touching her forehead in groggy confusion. "How did I get here?"_

_After feeling around in the dark, her small hands were met with the sensation of slick, wet bricks: she couldn't remember anything, but she knew it must have been part of the walls that surrounded her. Slowly getting up from the cold stone floor, she felt around the walls and tried to create an image in her head… just like a blind person would. The place was eerily silent to the point where her shallow breathing seemed too loud._

_Yet, despite the fact there was no sound other than her breathing, the girl somehow felt as though someone else was here in the dark – someone who was watching her move around with unfriendly eyes. Her small hand slipped on the slick wall when a set of footsteps echoed through the air directly in front of her… almost as though someone were walking down a long hall just on the other side of a nearby wall. Ignoring her blindness, the tiny girl hurried towards the source of the sound with her small hand still feeling for a door. When her fingers slid across a metal surface, her heart skipped a beat._

_She soon found a knob... and twisted it with all of her strength._

_The moment the door opened wide… the world around her dissolved and she suddenly found herself staring at a galaxy that had been dotted with millions upon millions of flickering stars. Nothing else was surrounding her except for that night sky, which meant that she was floating in an emptiness that seemed to stretch onwards until the end of time._

_"Where am I?" she whispered, slowly looking around as her voice echoed away into the void of stars; her long brown hair slid around her body in soft tendrils, drifting in a weightless manner. A bright flash of light suddenly lit up the world around her, stirring the stars like ripples in a pond. After it faded, she beheld a handsome man with blonde hair standing upon a rock in the middle of a liquid surface. Somehow, she knew she'd seen him many times before... and even though she couldn't remember why, she knew he was extremely evil._

_"It's you again," she whispered, staring at him from her spot in the swirling starlight. "Where are we?"  
_

_"Look, Princess," he sniggered, staring at her with deadened blue eyes. "See? I'm coming for you…"_

_Almost instantaneously, horrifying visions burned their way into the girl's mind: she had several flashes of armed men slitting the throats of living people with ancient swords; her yellow eyes widened when she beheld visions of crows feasting on rotting flesh and black feathers raining down upon blood-soaked earth. The girl covered her mouth with a shriek and stared at the blonde man's eyes when he started laughing hysterically: he seemed pleased by her terror-stricken expression._

_"Look, Princess…" the man laughed maniacally, pointing at the sky around them. "You will burn!"_

"—tumn?" a muffled voice called.

_"Burn! Burn! Burn!" the man laughed, icy blue eyes drilling into hers. "You will burn!"_

"Autumn, it's time to get up!" someone called, knocking on her door; with a violent jolt, Autumn's yellow eyes snapped open wide and she frantically looked around her room. Her breathing was ragged and uneven, but when she took in her familiar surroundings and the soothing air of her bedroom, she began to calm down. After a few moments, the pale brunette slowly sat up and touched her forehead: her long hair had been plastered to her cheeks and neck due to the cold sweat that had enveloped her entire body.

"It was just a dream…" Autumn whispered hoarsely, closing her eyes. "It was only another nightmare. Not real."

"Autumn, come on! Get up! We're going to be late!" Maki shouted, opening the door and sliding inside her room with a weary expression on her face. The Asian girl's features were very thin and soft, her eyes were slanted, and her skin was a beautiful caramel tan... but she had the most beautiful blue eyes that Autumn had ever seen. "Hurry up and get dressed! I'm not leaving your room until you're ready, all right?!"

Autumn's yellow eyes widened and she bolted out of bed: the last thing she wanted to do was give her foster sister a reason to hate her. After furiously rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, the girl brushed her thigh-length brown hair and pulled her bangs behind her head, expertly tying them in place with a large black ribbon. Autumn then slipped on her school clothes, and after making a few adjustments to her Academy uniform, she buttoned up her blazer and hastily grabbed her bag.

"I'm amazed by how quickly you did that," Maki sighed, folding her arms with a pout. "I'll hate you forever if you make me look pathetic in front of Mom and Dad."

Autumn's heart skipped a beat and her stomach tied itself into a painful knot at the statement: she wanted to let out a protest, but her throat locked up and she merely remained silent since there really was nothing she could say. Even though she was legally a part of Maki's family now, Autumn's biggest fear was being sent away after slipping up.

"I-I was kidding," Maki shakily sighed, touching her shoulder. "Don't look so scared, okay? I was trying to make you laugh."

"I don't like those kinds of jokes," the pale girl weakly explained, making her sister flinch. "You know what I went through."

"Yeah, I do... I'm sorry," Maki solemnly murmured, folding her arms. "Mom told everybody about it, even me... it's not your fault that you were homeless. I'm going to head to school now... see ya there."

A few minutes after Maki left, Autumn grabbed the rest of her things and ran out of their small apartment complex with her bag in hand. Once she was outside, she sprinted down the New York City streets as fast as she could possibly go: this part of her day was the trickiest since she had to walk three miles each morning without being late for her first class. When she was about halfway to her destination, however, Autumn spotted her sister walking around a corner with a handsome boy at her side.

The girl instantly slowed to a halt and gazed at the two of them, heart growing heavy.

"Why is she walking with the guy who tried to rape me yesterday?" Autumn mumbled unhappily, turning away and looking out at the East River with haunted golden eyes: beyond the canal was the ocean… and since it was a very cold, grey day, she felt as though the sea matched her mood. After a moment of gazing at the endless planes of gray water in front of her, something unexpectedly caught her eye.

She felt her breath hitch when she saw a boy with beautiful silver hair and crimson irises out of the corners of her eyes.

He was staring at the ocean with a calm expression on his face, but his fair features seemed abnormally exotic even though nothing about them particularly stood out. The brunette's yellow eyes widened when a breeze lifted his unkempt locks off his shoulders and into the air. However, the moment Autumn looked at him head on, she jumped when she realized she had been seeing things: his hair was actually jet black and his features were plain.

When the boy realized she was staring, he looked at her with piercing brown eyes... not red ones

"You smell like blood," he stated calmly, looking at her with an emotionless visage. "Blood and death."

"W-what?!" the girl squeaked, looking down at herself with an alarmed expression. "Hey... that's… n-not a nice thing to say."

"True... but it is the truth, regardless of how unpleasant it seems: you've seen one life end by the hand of another," the boy quietly replied, looking at her with a piercing expression and examining her face with far-seeing brown eyes. "You've seen things that you shouldn't have seen… you've seen the past, present, and future… you've even seen entire worlds unfold before your eyes, and yet… although your heart holds no evil, you've cast a cloud of death across the ones who are closest to you."

"Who the hell are you?" Autumn whispered, shakily backing away from the boy. "What are you talking about?!"

"You're not a witch like everyone says," the boy rambled on, completely ignoring her questions. "You're exactly like me."

"Huh?" the girl scoffed in confusion. "Look, I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm only a high school student."

"You'll know the truth soon enough," he sighed, looking at her with a more gentle expression. "Beware: danger will come for you through a wave darker than the blackest of nights."

"What?" Autumn whispered, shivering when she recalled her nightmares. "What do you mean?"

However, the boy's brown eyes merely flicked upward and he stared at something high above in a spacey manner: before she could say more, a black feather fell down in front of her eyes and deep thundering sound unexpectedly split the air above her. The girl jumped and whirled around in in alarm.

"What in the world was that?" Autumn asked, looking up at the sky. "Hey, did you hear that?!"

Autumn trailed off once she'd turned back around: the boy she'd been talking to had completely vanished. The brunette instantly looked around, even going as far as looking over the edge of the bridge just in case the crazy boy had jumped off of it. Somehow, he had actually managed to disappear without a single trace, which completely baffled her and made her feel uneasy. However, when Autumn stood up again and dusted her skirt off, she blinked when she saw several gleaming white feathers resting on the ground where the boy had been standing. After a moment of staring, Autumn hastily whirled around and began jogging towards her school.

For some reason, she had been thoroughly disturbed by what had just transpired.

When she arrived at her destination nearly an hour late, she was kind of upset: Autumn woodenly walked inside the building and made her way to the calculus classroom. Just like always, everyone's eyes fixed on her pale face the moment she stepped inside: Autumn shifted uncomfortably under the stares before continuing forward and making her way over to her desk.

"You're extremely late," Mrs. Kingsford stated sourly, giving her a glare. "It's almost lunch time, Miss Fyre."

"I'm sorry... I'll finish all the work I missed during my lunch break, promise," Autumn mumbled, shaking her head in dismay. "A... frightening situation concerning a typical New York psychopath occurred while I was on my way to school. That's why I'm so late... I got held up quite a bit as a result of his craziness."

"Oh, really?" the woman inquired, cocking an eyebrow. "What happened, if I may ask?"

"I'd rather not say," Autumn mumbled, lowering her head; she could hear the whispers and snickers as she sat down and scooted in, but she tried to pretend like it didn't bother her. To make matters worse, there was a new student sitting in at the desk directly behind hers… and it was obviously a boy, which would only make things harder for her in the long run. Newer boys always messed with her more than the older ones did after they noticed her freakish eyes. However, about ten minutes after class began, she'd finished her schoolwork and put her head down... she hadn't been planning on sleeping, but...

_All of a sudden, the darkness had come for her again._

_Autumn slowly opened her eyes and stared into the void of shadows, feeling her heart speeding up as her dazed memories struggled to awaken. The girl could hear the same distant dripping sound and smell the same cloying metallic air… as though the room were full of stale blood. Her heart skipped a beat when the realization hit her: something or someone had been slaughtered down here, all alone in the darkness. The brunette lifted her hands, but paused when she felt something strange: instead of hitting a slick stone wall, she felt the sensation of warm skin and satin-like hair beneath her fingertips. After several moments of touching this anomaly with a bit of apprehension, she registered heavy breathing and blinked._

_She didn't know why, but she somehow knew the person in front of her was someone she loved._

_"Who are you?" Autumn whispered, struggling to see through the shadows. "Why are you here?"_

_"Shut up!" a female voice hissed, making her twitch. "It's your fault I'm dead!"_

_"Look, Princess," a familiar sinister voice snickered, echoing out of the darkness. "The end is coming close to you."_

_Almost immediately, the void of stars filled the air and Autumn saw her sister standing in front of her. The Asian girl's beautiful blue eyes were full of cold hatred, and her expression was wrinkled with a terrible smile that had been laced with rage and satisfaction. It wasn't until the last second that the brunette realized she was holding an enormous sword high above her head, shimmering tip facing the sky._

"—yre?" a distant voice asked. "Are you listening?"

_Autumn's heart froze when the blade came down._

"NO!" Autumn shrieked, bolting upright and flailing around in mass hysteria. "NO! NO, NO, NO! NOOOOO!"

"What on earth?!" Mrs. Kingsford squawked, jumping away from her desk with both hands raised. "Calm down!"

The girl's outburst had caused everybody in her class to jump and stare at her in confusion, but she wasn't aware of that: Autumn was too busy trying to catch her breath to notice all of the odd looks. Ever since her encounter with the boy who'd disappeared, she'd had an odd feeling of danger that had grown to the point of crushing her stomach. After a moment of blinking herself awake, the girl glanced around and realized she was standing several steps back from her desk.

She was still in the middle of class.

Autumn winced when her teacher strode towards her and anxiously bit her lip: she usually had no problems getting along with her teachers, but for some reason... this one absolutely hated her. No matter how accommodating and subservient the girl tried to be, Mrs. Kingsford remained antagonistic towards her.

The teacher tapped on the desk with the corner of her textbook.

"I can accept the fact that some students will try to steal a few winks in class every now and then, but this is a first," the woman stated snidely, giving the brunette an expression that made her cringe. "Will you bring a pillow to school next time? I'd just hate to think that our uncomfortable desks should cause you any distress. Silly me, believing students should sleep at home... but then again, if you find your classes to be so boring, why show up at all?"

"I... I-I'm sorry," Autumn murmured, shakily folding her hands and letting out a sigh. "I finished the work you handed out, so I put my head down since I have a headache... I never meant to fall asleep."

"Perhaps," the woman retorted, narrowing her eyes, "or perhaps you're simply too _busy_ at night to get any sleep? Are you the kind of girl who stays out at all hours of the night?"

"Not at all," the brunette explained, evenly meeting the woman's gaze; all manner of awkwardness had left her eyes the moment Mrs. Kingsford had spoken. "I mean, if you've got nobody to have fun with, there's no point in going out and partying. Oh, and before you get mad, let me just make something clear: if you _ever_ step beyond the boundaries of a teacher and student again, you can expect me to do the same, Ma'am. I already know that you're not _required_ to teach me, but that doesn't give you the right to talk down to me like you were doing a second ago."

For a moment, the woman actually blinked in total surprise before staring at her eyes.

"Well, what about your eyes?" the woman muttered, scowling in anger. "Are they _naturally_ yellow?"

"Yes, actually: these are the color they've been since I was born," Autumn politely responded, then pulled a strand of her thigh-length hair from behind her and held it in front of her with a calm demeanor. "This is also my natural hair-length: I'm not fond of extensions since they're too easy to rip out. On top of that, I'm the top student in the whole school and I always do what I'm told... so I'd appreciate it if you'd give me a bit of leniency when it comes to things like this: after all, I _am_ one of the few people who'll actually bother to do all the homework you assign."

"You still can't put your head down in class," the woman retorted, folding her arms when the students stared. "If you finished your work in this class, you should try working on any work you've got in your other classes."

"I finished all of my required work, both in this class _and_ out of it, so by all rights I'm allowed to put my head down," the brunette calmly replied, keeping her voice neutral and polite. "At the moment, there is literally _nothing_ for me to do."

"Very well," Mrs. Kingsford retorted firmly, straightening up and imperiously pointing at the board. "Then you can definitely tell me the answer to that particular question, am I correct? If you actually did the work like you said, you _should_ know the answer."

After taking a glance at it, the brunette flipped her notebook open and pointedly read the answer she had scribbled down a few minutes ago. She shot a quick glance at the teacher after she was done, but the woman appeared far from satisfied. Personally, Autumn found it to be a little ridiculous… she really was the only person in class who ever bothered to do the homework. Instead, the teacher glared at her for a long moment, almost as if she were thinking about doing something a teacher shouldn't; then she swept away, rapping her ruler on tables to wake people up.

Autumn instantly sank back into her chair with a soft sigh of relief.

She hated being the center of attention.

Luckily, there was only ten more minutes until the end of the period… and when the bell finally rang, the whole class erupted into a flurry of action. Autumn allowed herself to be pulled along by the stream of students to the cafeteria, listening to the swirl of gossip and the loud teasing. When somebody unexpectedly elbowed her in the side and accidentally smashed her body against a locker, she let out a gasp of pain that was lost in the chatter; the guy who'd elbowed her out of the way kept going without seeming to notice. Autumn squeezed her eyes shut and bit her bottom lip as pain rocketed throughout her sides, tasting the familiar tang of copper as she drew blood.

The pain in her lip relieved her from the painful agony in her side.

She still had a few old bruises from when she'd been living on the streets.

When she was fine enough to stand upright, the girl pulled her thigh-length brown hair over her shoulder and slowly continued on her way. When Autumn finally made it to the cafeteria, she quickly joined the line and grabbed nothing but a carton of juice since she was eager to remove herself from the jostling crowd. She found it exceedingly intimidating to be surrounded by other people because, for most of her life, they had either shunned her or she had purposely pushed them away.

Autumn hadn't wanted people to know what sort of creature she was, and others were reluctant to remain friends with her since she'd refused to answer any of their questions about her uncontrollable _'problems.'_ Not only that, her eye color drew the attention of everyone around her if they happened to notice... and the worst part was that her long-run reputation as being something _more_ than human constantly drew unwanted attention, making her a scapegoat for interrogation.

That's why she continuously hid her eyes and refused to speak to her classmates.

"Look who's finally arrived!" someone sneered, making the small girl freeze. "It's the yellow-eyed freak!"

When Autumn halted, one of the guys standing behind her grabbed her wrist and forcefully spun her around.

"Um, hello," Autumn greeted in a monotone, refusing to let any emotion break through her mask. "Can I help you?"

"We heard something interesting yesterday," one guy commented. "Is it true that you zapped your own sister's boyfriend with a lightning bolt?!"

"E-excuse me?" Autumn asked, blinking in stunned surprise for several moments. "I… I didn't do that!"

"Someone saw you two making out yesterday," another boy laughed. "You supposedly sent him flying with your freaky powers!"

Autumn flinched and looked down at the ground, vibrant yellow eyes becoming torn: she swallowed as the events from the day before came back to her. How could someone have seen a huge boy forcibly trying to rape her and not come to help when she was clearly screaming for it? Better yet, how could they spread such a terrible lie?

"You're mistaken: we weren't kissing and he's lucky that I didn't kill him for what he did to me yesterday," Autumn stated emotionlessly, struggling to retain her composure when she realized that everybody around them was listening. "Plus, Maki is my foster sister... I could never hurt her."

"That's not what I heard," another guy scoffed, blocking her path out of the cafeteria. "You'd better tell Maki you're sorry, Freak."

"I don't have to explain myself to anyone," Autumn retorted through gritted teeth. "Mark tried to stick his tongue down my throat, so _he_ can be the one who explains what happened."

She made to walk around him but had only taken two steps when someone stuck their foot out and tripped her. Since she was only a foot away from the door, she found her face quickly coming to meet the metal of the handle. By the time she had braced herself for humiliation and a bloody nose, she was startled to see that she was hovering a few inches above the handle: her carton of juice was being held by someone's delicate hands. Quickly finding her feet, the small girl looked up at her savior and blinked rapidly in surprise: her lightly tanned skin and slender build was well-known throughout the whole school, and her slanted blue eyes were so cold that they could have frozen hell completely solid.

"Maki," the guy who'd tripped her stuttered, sounding fearful. "Hey, girl, what's up?"

Autumn lowered her eyes and looked away, feeling extremely relieved: Maki had come to her rescue once again.

The half-Japanese girl was in her final year of high school, and she was famous on the female basketball team because she had won the state finals four times in a row during her entire high school existence. Autumn was two grades below her and known only by her teachers and the staff due to her high intelligence: in fact, most people didn't even know that the two girls were related as a result of the recent adoption.

Autumn straightened her school skirt and fixed her blazer, shivering a little despite the warmth in the cafeteria.

"What's going on here?" Maki asked in a mock polite voice, eyeing the boys with calm danger; her hand was still on Autumn's arm, and the smaller girl trembled a little from the fear of being touched. The boys stumbled over their words as they tried to come up with a good explanation.

"You heard the rumors, right?" the first guy spoke up, making the Asian beauty narrow her eyes. "We were trying to get even."

Autumn flinched backwards and blinked at them with huge eyes: if they'd really been misinformed about what had happened with Mark the day before, that meant the whole school thought it had been a consensual thing. Which meant that her sister... her idol and her role model... would believe that she had willingly kissed her boyfriend and would most likely never forgive her. Autumn's mouth trembled as she snuck a glance at Maki's face... but her sister didn't even give the reply a second thought.

"I don't need ignorant people like you to fight my battles," Maki stated coldly. "Mark tried to rape my sister yesterday and actually had the audacity to act like nothing had happened between them: I broke up with him this morning after he stupidly told me himself that he'd purposely tried to frighten Autumn. He didn't even know she was my little sister."

"Wait, what?" another boy scoffed, paling in dismay. "Well... if you say so... but wow! That's... um..."

"Scat," Maki ordered the boys, arctic eyes turning dangerously hard; they all obeyed in an instant, rushing through the cafeteria doors the second after she gave the command. Then she turned her cold blue gaze on Autumn and the small girl flinched, quickly diverting her yellow eyes to look at the ground with her shoulders tensed; however, she was startled when the older girl pulled her into a hug and laughed gently. "Don't worry, Autumn-chan... I'm completely aware that you did what you had to. I know Mark was in the wrong, so don't let those idiots get to you."

"Thanks," Autumn whispered, purposely avoiding looking at her face.

"No problem: I'm your sister, now, so I have to keep an eye on you just in case things like this happen! Now, let's get to class," Maki giggled, ruffling her hair before she walked off, heading through the cafeteria doorway. Autumn followed her, but just before she left the room she paused and looked over her shoulder: when she saw several people at nearby tables staring at her, the tiny brunette quickly ducked her head down before hurrying around the corner.

Five hours later, Autumn Fyre was home and standing in the upstairs bathroom: she was brushing her teeth, and she'd planned to change out of her uniform before she went downstairs, but she felt an odd need to keep herself overly clean and succumbed to temptation. So, here she was: brushing her teeth and looking at her reflection with half-lidded yellow eyes. If she didn't know any better, her reflection looked rather bored at the moment...

"Hey, Autumn-chan?" a soft female voice called; Autumn flinched and fear trickled through her stomach when Maki slid into the bathroom and wrapped her arms around her neck with a sigh. "Can I brush my teeth with you, pretty please? It's almost time for dinner and Oto-san is showering right now. Plus, I kicked Mark's bum for you today!"

"Sure, Onee… sama?" Autumn replied questioningly, furrowing her thin eyebrows. "Is that the right honorific?"

"Well, for someone who's just learning how to speak Japanese," the Asian girl giggled, "yes, it is."

"Maki-san, it's not easy," Autumn pouted, going back to brushing her teeth. "It's actually really hard."

"I guess so," the older girl murmured, tossing her hair out of her eyes as she picked up her toothbrush. "Autumn-chan, have you noticed that Oka-san and Oto-san are acting strange tonight? They barely said a word at dinner, and Onii-chan was…"

"Yes, I noticed, and it was a little odd," Autumn replied softly after she'd washed her mouth out. "Was it because of me? Did I do something to make Mama and Papa angry with me? If I did, I'll go apologize as soon as possible, I promise I will!"

"No! I don't think that's it at all!" Maki hastily reassured her. "They absolutely adore you, Autumn-chan. Ka-san even said that adopting you was the best decision she and To-san ever made! I think it's cool having a little sister, too… so, yeah."

"Really?" Autumn squeaked, looking up at her foster sister as a huge smile split her face. "Do you think they like me?"

"Like you?" snorted in amusement, rolling her eyes. "Sis, they don't like you; they love you."

"They…" Autumn trailed off and fell silent, dazed by the shocking revelation; a sudden crash from beneath them drew their attention. "Maki-san, what was that?"

"I don't know," Maki murmured, giving the girl a startled look when Autumn bent down and grabbed her school bag with shaking fingers.

"Yuzuru, help!" a woman suddenly wailed from downstairs. "EEEK! Someone is trying to kick our front door down!"

"Eiko! Get the children and run away!" a man roared frantically. "It's another one of those monsters!"

"Ka-san, To-san?! What's going on?!" Maki called, bolting toward the door and looking out with a frightened expression on her tan face. When more crashes ensued, the pretty Asian girl darted out of the bathroom and headed for the stairs. Autumn immediately dropped her toothbrush and sprinted down the stairs after her foster sister with her bag, but just as the two girls ran into the room, horror and tragedy struck. A hooded figure with glowing red eyes had just slammed his fist through the stomach of the bearded Asian man that had been standing in front of his pregnant wife.

The woman immediately shrieked, covering her eyes.

"PAPA!" Autumn shrieked, recoiling with a jolt as blood splattered across the walls and sprinkled both girls' faces with hot liquid. The man ignored her cry and moved onto the screaming woman immediately afterwards—but once he was finished with her, he turned to look at the two of them with glowing red eyes. Autumn's heart nearly stopped: she'd never, not once in her life, seen anything so horrible—not even in the memories she'd lost when her biological family had died.

Just as the monster was lunging for Maki's throat, _it_ roared to life inside the girl's soul.

Her eyes abruptly lit up with an inner blue light and her long brown hair fanned out as a surge of electric energy coursed through her veins: a force she could only feel abruptly sliced off the monster's arms, and the frenzied creature screeched as the severed limbs fell to the ground—convulsing and writhing in agony as blood began spurting from the decapitated trunks of his body. Soon he withered away like a mummy and turned into sparkling blue dust.

Revolted and horrified, Autumn let out a terrified shriek as her features returned to normal before grabbing Maki's hand and running out of the house—sprinting off down the street with her sister in two. The two of them darted through the city until it began getting dark some several hours later, running even as the sky began to cloud over with rainclouds. Autumn led to the abandoned toy warehouse she'd been sleeping in for the three weeks up until she'd been adopted, dragging her inside to get out of the oncoming downpour and pulling her into the very back of the factory. Maki began wailing hysterically when Autumn let go and collapsed to her knees with a vacant expression.

The brunette was too stunned to comprehend what had just happened to her new family.

"I'm going home!" the Asian girl shouted, stumbling to her feet. "We have to go back, right now!"

"We can't do that, Maki!" Autumn squeaked, clamping her hand around her sister's wrist and tugging gently; stray strands of her reddish brown hair shone as it fell across her glasses, and tears began filling her eyes when the Asian girl tried to get up again. "Maki, we can't go home anymore! Don't leave me all alone, please! They're dead!""

"It's not true!" the Japanese girl wailed, flinging her long black hair around and burying her face in her free hand as she began to cry. "It's just not true! They can't be dead! Maybe they're still alive! Maybe we can save them!"

"It is true!" Autumn cried, clinging to her sister's arm as she also began to cry. "We both saw it! He killed them!"

"No! No, no, no! Why are the two of us still alive when they had to die?" Maki whined, falling to her knees as she burst into discordant sobs. "Why did that guy's arms fly off like that? There was so much blood! It's all over us! Why won't it come off? Why did it happen?!"

Autumn instantly fell silent, feeling jittery when she remembered how her powers had gone haywire. The man had murdered her foster parents and had turned on her sister: because of that, she'd killed him by accident with her mind.

"I don't know," Autumn weakly replied.

"Autumn-chan, you're all that I have left now," Maki whimpered, wiping her slanted blue eyes and staring through her wet bangs at the tiny brunette. "Promise that you won't leave me alone or go off by yourself! There might be more of those things out there! It definitely wasn't human, so we need to be really careful, right?!"

"We'll both stay here until morning," Autumn croaked, drawing her knees up to her chest and burying her face in them as she tried to change the subject. "It'll be safer for us to travel if we aren't sleepy."

"It's pointless to do that, though," Maki whispered from beside her; Autumn shifted and glanced up, golden eyes twinkling in the dim light as she stared at her crying foster sister. "No matter how far we run, we'll never escape from the law. They'll think we killed everyone and they'll chase us forever. It's so… pointless."

"No, it's not," Autumn retorted, eyes saddening when the Asian girl looked up. "I've been through hell and survived, Maki Mizuki. I guarantee that you and I will make it no matter what! I promise! No matter how many years pass, no matter how many people chase us, I promise that we'll make it through this together!"

"Please, Autumn, don't leave me alone!" Maki whispered, breaking down into tears again. "You're the only person I have now!"

"I won't," Autumn whispered, feeling forlorn and terrified at the same time; Maki hugged the girl and kissed her on the cheek before leaning away and staring at the wall. Autumn was taken aback by the older girl's actions since she hadn't been kissed by anyone since she'd turned seven. It was a very unusual feeling for her, so she didn't really know how to react.

"Thank you," Maki sighed, getting up and taking the younger girl's pale hand.

"Wait a second, where are we going?" Autumn asked, clutching at Maki's arm as she fought to remain seated.

"I was going to go call the police..." Maki intoned, trailing off and staring at the ground. "We need to tell them..."

Before Autumn could respond to that statement, several blinding lights unexpectedly illuminated the room they were huddled in. Just before Maki pulled her down and held her close, Autumn managed to see through the glare and spotted a whole team of policemen holding machine guns in their arms. She saw that two other men were conversing out of her earshot, but they seemed to be arguing about something. The girl frowned and squint to see a bit better, but then one of the arguing men shook his head and stomped his foot.

Autumn instantly felt her heart leap unpleasantly.

"FIRE!" he roared, thrusting his finger out at them.

"NOOO!" Maki shrieked, clutching Autumn to her chest as a deafening cacophony exploded in the air. However, the brunette's large golden eyes rippled with blue light and began to glow as a surge of air whipped her long hair up towards the ceiling: with a flash, a sparkling spray of water exploded around them like a cocoon and froze solidly, shielding both Autumn and her sister from the bullets.

Once they stopped firing, the slender brunette lifted a hand and shattered the ice barrier with her mind.

"It's all right," Autumn stated in a shaken tone of voice, nodding twice for reassurance before she stood up and lifted her hands: the men instantly started firing their weapons again, but she merely spun around like a dancer and used the movements of her body to channel her powers. With precise and graceful movements, she heated the air around her fingertips and flung her arms out: when her fire melted the bullets, she whipped her hands up and glared as they sparked with electricity.

After several moments of standing behind the fire barrier, she channeled several bolts of lightning out of her palms.

The men scattered like ducklings.

"How are you doing that?!" the Asian girl cried. "They're going to kill us if you pick a fight with them, Autumn! Stop!"

"I won't let them have a chance, so just be quiet and stay behind me!" Autumn cried, hurriedly pulling Maki to her feet before standing protectively in front of her with both of her skinny arms spread. "I don't know who they are, but they messed with the wrong girl! Nobody fires a weapon at my family! Nobody!"

Making several carefully aimed launches as her eyes shone with blue light, she effectively made the men scatter; after that, Autumn stopped throwing stuff waited for the next attack, but nobody moved; they just stood there and stared at her, which seemed a little odd. Most people would have been charging another assault, so why weren't they doing anything?

Autumn pondered it with a frown, but she wasn't prepared for what happened next.

Without a word, Maki used all of her strength to shove her aside; at the same time, the sound of a single gunshot exploded through the factory and the Japanese girl let out a sound that seemed caught between a wavering gasp and a choked screech. Autumn's glowing blue eyes went blank and rippled to their former gold color as her foster sister's body tilted past her. She didn't know what was going on… but she knew it was going to be terrible.

Autumn turned her head and watched with a vacant expression as the Japanese girl fell heavily on her stomach with her arms slightly spread. She stared uncomprehendingly when Maki simply lay there on the ground, unblinking and unmoving as blood began to pool around her torso; it was spilling from a hole the back of her shirt. Autumn's golden eyes began to widen and she slowly opened her mouth, shaking with the urge to scream as an unbearable pressure built inside her chest—but for some reason, no sound could escape her lips.

For several moments, she had been frozen solid.

Then, shoulders shaking, the fifteen-year-old girl finally let out a horrified screech that shook the walls of the building before she fell to her knees. She frantically lifted her foster sister onto her lap and shook her desperately, hands grasping at the elder girl's clothes as she tried to make her wake up.

"Maki, don't die! You have to wake up!" she wailed, shaking her body. "Please, wake up! Open your eyes! We promised we'd make it through this together! We promised, so you can't die! You can't! Help! Help us! Somebody, please, help us!"

Autumn stopped screaming when a hand touched her cheek.

"Don't cry, Autumn," Maki murmured, smiling as a thick trickle of blood streamed out of her mouth and stained her teeth. "You're my sister... you have a home now, so why are you crying? Can't you smile, too? Oka-san and Oto-san love you... let's go have dinner with them, okay? They're waiting for us at the table..."

"M-M-Maki, don't die," Autumn whined, clutching her sister's cheeks with both hands. "You can't! PLEASE!"

"Oh, crap... it's already time for school," the Asian girl babbled, blue eyes glazing over. "If you don't get up, you'll be... late... "

Autumn's eyes widened as the tears streaming down her cheeks froze when the girl went limp and stared off into space.

Her crystal blue eyes weren't moving and her face had gone completely slack.

When reality came crashing down, the brunette was only aware of the sudden silence that descended over her mind. With a clap of thunder and a blinding flash of light that left the officers blinded, the air around her exploded and the approaching men flew backward as a bolt of electricity surged through her body. Autumn's eyes flared to a blindingly bright blue only a split second before her brown hair flew towards the ceiling in a gale of wind.

Before the eyes of everyone present, a white aura engulfed her form and a monstrous set of feathered white wings exploded out of her back, shredding her shirt and revealing her bra. However, dread filled the heart of every human when she slowly set Maki's body down and stood up, long brown hair billowing weightlessly around her radiantly glowing body. When she turned around, Autumn looked as though she had descended clean out of heaven.

"I want everything to go away! No more sadness! No more pain! No more _me!"_ Autumn screamed, squeezing her glowing eyes shut with a sob. "You bastards killed my family _all over again! You're the real monsters!_ I wish... I wish I could just _disappear_!"

Only a moments after her thunderous words split the air, the world froze and time itself halted in its tracks.

The colors of the world inverted into the negatives as a black wave of power exploded out of her body.

Seconds later, everything around her disintegrated and was sent flying toward the sky in pieces: walls, chairs, and flooring dissolved into nothing as they were torn from the ground, the buildings surrounding the warehouse were reduced to nothing but stone splinters that soon disintegrated, and the rocky ground itself broke away in the face of her immense power, exploding into the air and flying away from her in a shockwave of blinding lightning.

The girl arched her back and spread her wings, closing her eyes as her entire body dissolved.

With a blinding flash of light, Autumn Fyre—and all of her personal belongings—disappeared off the face of the earth.


	2. Chapter 2

 

**Chapter One: When You Wish Upon a Star**   


Autumn's eyes fluttered as her mind swam into awareness, and she slowly opened them as a feeling of warmth swept through her body. Blue skies and puffy clouds stared back at her, giving the girl a moment of pause: feeling extremely confused, Autumn slowly sat up and looked around with dazed golden eyes. Her schoolbag was lying next to her, as well as the duffel bag she'd been carrying with her ever since she'd become homeless... but for some reason, something dry had crusted on her face and she had been sleeping outside.

"Where am I?" she croaked, rubbing her tired eyes and slowly getting to her feet.

However, that's when her mind jolted into awareness and the memories of what had just happened impaled her heart, causing her to break down into tears. Falling back down, the teenage girl curled into a little ball and wept brokenly, feeling more alone than ever at that particular moment. After she was finished crying, though, Autumn wiped her eyes and looked around in confusion. She instantly realized that something wasn't right: the school forest was only a few meters away from her, but both the road and sidewalk were gone. With furrowed brows, she looked around and saw that there weren't any houses in any familiar spots.

There were, however, a few people wearing tunics leading a couple of oxen across the fields.

 _Wait a second... tunics and oxen?_ Autumn wondered, noticing the strange attire. _Why are people dressed so funny?_

She thought of asking them if there was some kind of Medieval Convention going on, but quickly decided not to. Instead, the small girl got up and looked around before she wearily began to walk home. Autumn shifted her weight when everyone she passed gave her odd looks, but she froze when a flash of silver hair unexpectedly flash past her. Slowly turning to stare after the person who'd run past, but she shivered when she noticed that nobody had been there.

Nothing was behind her...

When Autumn finally made it to where her house should have been, nothing but endless grain fields met her searching eyes.

"Where the hell is my house?" Autumn squeaked, fright taking over her mind when she realized that her entire neighborhood had disappeared. Her breath began to quicken as she started running, shouting for Maki, her neighbors—anyone who would recognize her… but after almost an hour of sprinting through rural population and strange villages, no one had answered her cries. She was all alone, and that simple fact made her feel so afraid that she wanted to cry.

"Thief!" a male voice shouted, making the small girl jump. "I finally found you! I saw your long hair when you bolted!"

"Huh?" Autumn whispered, snapping her head around just as a metal bolt embedded itself next to her left foot. Startled immensely, the girl climbed to her feet as a man on a horse galloped toward her with another bolt already notched into his crossbow. People in the village scattered with cries of alarm when the man shot at her again, this time grazing her leg and tearing her stocking. "OW! What the hell is _wrong_ with you?!"

"Thief!" the man roared again, sighting down the shaft a third time. "Prepare to die!"

"What?! Oh, god! Someone, _help_ me!" Autumn screeched, spinning around and bolting down the road as fast as she could go; her arms pumped madly and her hair flew behind her in a gleaming chestnut cloud as the man charged after her. A quick glance over her shoulder told the girl what she didn't want to believe: considering the fact that he was aiming a real live crossbow in her direction, she had a good reason to use her powers.

Skidding to a stop and purposely letting her fear overwhelm her mind, Autumn whirled around.

Taking a deep breath as her body began to glow, she lifted her right hand and held her palm up him as the energy inside her body surged; when her hair fanned out with a jolt of electricity, a bolt of lightning smashed into the earth next to the horseman with a deafening crack. The lightning not only frightened the rider senseless, it put his horse into such a panic that it gave a scream of fright and turned tail.

"I needs to put some distance between myself and school-based breakfasts," Autumn whined, shivering as she shakily turned around and began speed-walking into the woods. "They're causing some extreme hallucinations."

The moment she stepped foot into the forest, however, the girl knew that she wasn't anywhere near New York: this forest had a clean feeling to it… and she knew a forest situated near massive population just couldn't compare. There wasn't any garbage littering the ground, nor were there any marks on the trees—and on top of that, the underbrush was vibrant and it covered almost every part of the forest floor.

 _Todo, I don't think I'm in Manhattan anymore,_ Autumn whispered silently, wrapping her arms around herself and looking around until the sound of strange birds and flowing water caught her attention. It only took Autumn a few minutes to reach the stream, but she let out a heavy sigh when she was able to plunge her hands into the water. After a drinking her fill and splashing the cool liquid over her face and neck, she sat back on her feet and looked at the scenery with dazed yellow eyes.

"The thought that this was a dream," Autumn murmured dejectedly, burying her face in her knees, "was the only thing keeping me from running around and ripping my hair out like a madwoman. Where the heck am I?! What happened to me?"

"It's all very good to go about hacking and whacking dragons," someone laughed snidely; Autumn's head snapped up as an instant shred of fear prickled through her stomach, "but if a human falls in the forest, does his body make a thud?"

"What on earth?" Autumn wondered, feeling a little baffled by what she'd just heard. "Did he say... _dragons?"_

The small girl silently got up and took a step forward, but she slapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a scream of shock when an ear-shattering roar cut through the air. She was just to run back into the woods like a frightened rabbit when she realized that the sound had come from... below? With shaking shoulders, the girl cautiously moved forward and paused when she discovered that the stream she;d found was actually the top of an enormous waterfall.

Getting down on all fours, she timidly peeked over the edge and realized that the speaker was a robed man sitting on a black horse. Behind him and sitting on a rock was a monk who was writing on some sort of odd-looking scroll with a feather quill that shivered and bobbed in his hand. Luckily for her, the thundering of the falls managed to smother her yip of alarm when the half-decomposed corpses of a horse and rider exploded from the falls.

The bodies flew towards the robed man, who ducked low in his saddle.

 _Are those… bodies?_ Autumn silently wondered, covering her mouth in dazed shock; the poor girl began to feel lightheaded with fright when the monk accidentally stepped on the corpse's floating head. _Oh, HELL no! That's a dead person's body, which means someone murdered him! I don't want to be here to find out what killed him! Can someone back in my bedroom please wake me up now? Maki, please, wake me up and tell me to get ready for school! Wake me up!_

"That's all that's left of the last dragon slayer that tangled with me!" an inhuman voice roared, resonating throughout the stone beneath her and cutting of her train of thought. "If I were you, I'd quit while I was ahead!"

 _Wait a minute,_ she silently muttered, jolting in alarm, _did he just call the guy on the horse a Dragon slayer?_

She was still trying to process this new tidbit of information when the knight launched his javelin into the waterfall, the sound of his yell jerked her out of her thoughts. Digging her nails into the ground, the girl leaned forward a bit more to discover that the weapon had jolted to a stop halfway through the falls, quivering silently for a moment. Then she heard a numerous amount of loud crunching noises and the javelin vanishing a foot at a time into the curtain of water. Several pieces of what used to be the weapon were launched out of the falls a few seconds later.

The pieces loudly smashed into the shield the robed man lifted.

"You know," the voice boomed again, making her jump, "I've got quite a collection in here!"

"I won't be added to it!" the man shouted back, making Autumn go still: she had finally realized what was happening.

"He's just another lowlife bully!" Autumn muttered, scowling as she picked up a fist sized stone. Sitting up straight and letting out a huff as her long hair slid behind her, the girl drew back her fist and launched the rock with all of her strength. The stone sailed through the air and smacked the robed man right in the forehead, causing him to lose his balance with a cry.

"Shite!" the black-haired man roared, scanning the rocks from behind his cracked spectacles. "Who the hell did that to me?!"

"I did, you big bully!" Autumn shrieked, slamming both of her hands on the ground in anger as she glared at him. "Why are you harassing the person inside that cave? You know what? I hated bullies like you when I was back home, so I'm sure as hell not gonna like them any better in a different environment! Leave whoever's in there alone and go away! Just go away!"

"You don't know what you're doing, woman!" the monk shouted, worriedly scanning the rocks. "That dragon is evil!"

"Don't act as if you know me, jerk! I hate people like you!" Autumn screeched, leaping to her feet and stepping forward until the sunlight illuminated her small form. "I hate people who automatically consider things that aren't like them to be evil! That kind of thinking only leads to suffering, and suffering is a type of pain that can't be understood by the person inflicting it!"

"Who the hell are you?" the robed man called, frowning as the sunlight played off her glossy hair. "Aren't you a bit young?"

"Mother of God," the monk breathed, "she's just a _child."_

"Shut up and leave whoever's in there alone or I'll make you!" Autumn cried, turning around with the intentions of looking for another rock; however, the girl froze when the horseback rider galloped out of the forest and spotted her again.

"Found you, Witch!" he roared, voice echoing around the forest and making her yellow eyes widen.

"Leave me alone! I'm not a thief _or_ a witch, so go away and pick on someone else!" Autumn wailed, whirling around only to remember that she was backed up against a cliff; when she turned to face the man with a look of horror on her face, he lifted the crossbow, aiming for her heart. Autumn let out a scream and leapt to the side when he fired, heart palpitating as the bolt ricocheted off the stone and clattered on the ground next to her foot. When he notched the weapon and aimed at her again, she tried to take a step backwards… but for some reason, her foot hit nothing.

"Huh?" she whispered, eyes going blank as the world tilted upright.

"Look out!" the monk yelled, watching in horror as she plummeted thirty feet to the water below.

"NOT FAIR! I CAN'T SWIM!" Autumn yipped, letting out a screech that could have shattered a wineglass; it was abruptly cut off when she hit the surface of the pond. She automatically tried to take in air only to have water fill her nostrils; the choking liquid pressed in on her from all sides as she tried to breathe, making her movements sluggish as she struggled to swim back to the surface. After a moment, however, she stopped struggling and gave up.

Autumn slowly began to sink underwater, arms stretched out toward the rippling surface as her energy dissolved. As she faced the sky that was so close yet so far away, her long brown hair swirled around her pale face and flashed like a mirror as it drifted in front of her eyes. Staring at the flickering shafts of sunlight with hazed golden eyes, she watched as the faint rippling above her grew dimmer, fading by the second; memories of her life surged into her awareness as she slowly closed her eyes. She had no regrets about having it come to end.

 _Why is it so cold?_ Autumn vaguely wondered, staring at the rippling blue as she drifted. _Where am I…? Who… am I? Why does my heart hurt so much? My lungs hurt, too, and I feel weightless… am I really underwater, or is this just a dream?_

Her head lolled as something hot and hard gripped her around the middle, viciously jerking her backwards.

After a moment, her hazed mind began to flicker and remembered she needed to breathe: yellow eyes going wide, the girl clutched at her throat and began to flail around as something pulled her through the lake. Then her head broke the surface and she took a deep, ragged, painful, and absolutely wonderful breath of air. However, she yipped when something jerked her to the side, cracking her ribcage with the force of the tug.

A few seconds later she was being dragged on land... and then she was lying limply on the bank.

Autumn lay on her back and blinked dazedly at the sky, but only a second later she had a burning coughing fit and was forced to roll on her side: she rapidly began to expel the water from her lungs, coughing and choking for several minutes as the water came up. However, the second her vision cleared she was treated to the sight of the robed man's face looming disturbingly close. Frankly, she was so startled by his appearance that she nearly fainted.

"EEK!" Autumn squealed, flailing her arms and smacking him in the nose by accident. "Help! Get away from me!"

"Ow! I just saved your life!" the man hollered, straightening his glasses when she scrabbled to her feet and moved to block his path to the cave. "No way! Even after falling off of a cliff, you're still protecting that monster? Are you insane?!"

"Only enough to be interesting," Autumn squeaked in defiance, glancing at the waterfall behind her. "Whoever's hiding in there right now... you can run away! Do something, just get out of here already! I'll hold him off!"

In response, the waterfall behind Autumn exploded and the small girl shrieked as she was thrown forward.

Her eyes widened as she twisted and stared up at the dragon that had leapt through the curtain of water. His gold and bronze scales glistened in the sun as his wings spread to their full width, beating strongly to gain altitude. Just before she hit the water a second time, the dragon lowered his gaze to hers, and his yellow eyes met her own. Anything else she could have seen was obliterated by her entrance into the falls, and by the time she had managed to slosh out of the pond, the dragon was gone.

"Stupid girl…" the robed man muttered, causing Autumn to fall back into the water with a splash. "Are you alright?"

After parting her soaked brown hair like a curtain, she glanced up at him with a pale face: the man had long black hair and his eyes were a stormy golden brown—like a summer forest on a rainy day. She nodded silently, but flinched backward when the man offered her a hand. She was utterly confounded as to why he would help her after she'd let the dragon get away, but after searching his face for any trace of trickery she decided she could trust him a little and took his offered hand. Once she was standing upright, he saw her school outfit and froze.

Then he noticed her yellow eyes and his expression become suspicious.

"Thanks, but I-I, uh…" she whispered shakily, turning to walk away. "I have to go now."

"May I ask why you are dressed so peculiarly?" the man asked, straightening his glasses and narrowing his eyes at her.

"What do you mean?" Autumn scoffed, turning to leave. "This is the standard Noble Academy school uniform, you weirdo."

"Weirdo?" the man muttered in confusion, staring at her receding back; however, the girl froze when a terrible suspicion dawned on her and she spun around again, looking at the man much more carefully. Her face drained of color as she took in his appearance: he was wearing black and grey robes, but there was a sword scabbard at his side and a bow was slung across his back—complete with quiver of arrows.

His outfit looked way too authentic for a mere convention.

"Are you a _knight?"_ Autumn squeaked in alarm, eyes becoming huge. "Like, a real knight?!"

"I _was_ a knight," the man replied, staring at her with a frown, "but it's a long tale to tell."

"What the fu—?!" Autumn began to shriek, then cut herself off by forcing a shrill laugh out of her throat. "Okay, u-um, all good stories are long, and mine's pretty long, too, so I'll see you later! I've got to go now, so, uh… bye!"

"You haven't answered my question," the man called when she began to walk away again. "I demand an answer."

Autumn froze and reluctantly looked over her shoulder, shaking involuntarily as tears began to fill her eyes. She really didn't want to deal with a medieval loony when she was obviously witch-material: being burned at a stake would become a very big possibility if she claimed to have traveled back in time, and it was even more likely since she had uncontrollable abilities that lashed out at random. All in all, Autumn Fyre was in some very serious trouble.

"Like I said, it's long story—and I honestly don't want to explain myself to a complete stranger! So, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to head back to, um…" Autumn trailed off and unsuccessfully tried to mask her fear as she looked around. "Okay, enough is enough! Will someone please just tell me what's going on?! Where the hell am I, and how the hell did I get here?!"

"I'll tell you where you are," the bespectacled man smugly offered, "but only if you tell me why you are dressed like a noble."

"Blackmailing jerk!" Autumn snapped, glaring up at him with folded arms. "First of all, who the hell are you?"

"I am Bowen D'Andesyrius," the man calmly explained, glaring right back at her. "That is all you need to know."

"You don't need to know my life story, then," the girl retorted, turning around to go get her things. "Goodbye."

"At least tell me why you are dressed so strangely," he abruptly barked. "That, and your family name."

"Fine, but only if you leave me alone! My name is Autumn Fyre, and I come from… well, from _very_ far away," the small girl snapped, turning around and gesturing down at her clothes. "Where I come from, this is the standard outfit for girls who want to learn new things. My clothes differ from yours because I lived in a different and much more extravagant culture."

"I see," the man murmured, staring at her with raised eyebrows, "so, you're saying that you're royalty?"

"Hah! More like a royal outcast," Autumn muttered, shaking her head with a dejected expression. "That's not important right now, though: the biggest problem I'm dealing with is that I have absolutely _no_ idea how I got here. I'm totally lost."

"I see…" the man repeated, sliding his arms into his sleeves with a frown. "You must have gotten separated from a caravan."

Autumn was perturbed by his unaffected reaction.

Instead of being shocked by her wild story, he seemed to be taking her explanation well: his face was only showing the slightest traces of surprise and confusion. A large shadow passed over them before he could say more and an extremely loud flapping noise slapped against the air like a drum; Autumn instantly covered her ears with a startled cry, watching with large eyes as Bowen started running.

Then he stopped and turned, motioning for her to follow him.

"What do you want?!" Autumn snapped, looking confused and slightly angry. "I don't know you!"

"If you have nothing better to do, I want you help me with that dragon!" Bowen sourly called, whistling loudly. "Consider it to be the debt for saving your life. I'll even forgive you for hitting me with that well-aimed stone if you'd so kindly oblige."

"Excuse me?!" Autumn shrieked, glaring at him in outrage as a black stallion galloped out of the woods. After staring at the horse for a second, the girl heard an angry shout and glanced up to see the crazed man glaring from atop the waterfall: Autumn instantly shuddered and decided to follow the four-eyed freak since she didn't want to become a living pincushion. However, her chest constricted with terror at the thought of hurting a beautiful creature like a dragon. Deciding to abandon her bags, the teenager leapt over a log and tried to follow the knight on foot.

After about five minutes of aimless running, the girl heard another roar from directly above her and froze.

She let out a shriek when a wall of fire sailed down from the sky, powers roaring to life in retaliation: water instantly swirled around her body and whipped her long brown hair towards the sky, shielding her from the fire with a liquid cocoon. When the water retreated and condensed around her hands, she felt a surge of power and it froze in a spray of light. She instantly went numb with shock: she now had a dual set of frozen ice shards connected to the back of her wrists. There wasn't anymore time for her to figure out her abnormalities, however, because the dragon was above her again.

Bolting into the forest, the small girl tried to sprint away, but the creature dove down in front of her.

"Leave me alone!" Autumn shrieked, falling to her knees and covering her head when the dragon snapped at her. She squeezed her eyes shut as she braced herself to be eaten alive, but when she wasn't bitten in half she glanced up with eyes that had unexpectedly filled with tears. When she noticed that the dragon's face was a foot away from her own, to say that she was startled would have been the understatement of the century.

She was absolutely stricken with inhumane terror.

However, one thing quickly became certain: he was eyeing her with an intelligent amount of suspicion.

That meant he was a sentient creature and not a mindless animal.

"You… do not smell or look like a dragon hunter," the creature stated, sniffing her. "You also protected me back at my cave: I recognize the sound of your voice. Tell me, why are you now associating with that man when you clearly tried to save me?"

"I'm not associating with _anybody_ in this horrible place!" Autumn shouted, crawling away on her backside as the tears brimmed over and spilled down her cheeks. "I just want to wake up from this nightmare and go home! I want to go home!"

Bowen chose that moment to burst from the trees on his horse.

Autumn's eyes flicked to look at him when he pulled something from his saddlebags, but even though she shrieked and pointed at him in warning, the man threw the object and it spiraled around the dragon's legs before he could react. The lasso latched around the dragon's right ankle, and he snarled angrily when he felt his leg jerked backward. What Bowen didn't notice was the fact that the lasso had attached to his saddle.

The dragon had obviously observed this and yanked on the cords: the bonds on the saddle snapped and carried the knight into the air, who began screaming his head off. Autumn bolted to her feat and charged into the forest as she attempted to follow them, sides burning from running so fast.

The dragon chuckled deeply as he dragged the bespectacled man through the trees.

"How do you like the ride, knight?" the dragon trilled, laughing from just above the tree line. "Sounds like fun down there!"

"Vile Snake," Bowen hissed as he got off the saddle, jumped into the foliage, and purposely sent the riding instrument straight into a gap between a thick, split tree. The saddle attached, caught, and the rope tightened almost instantly.

"Yikes!" the dragon yelped, and the girl flinched when a deafening boom echoed in the distance.

"No!" Autumn whispered, knowing that the creature had just come down. "He can't kill it! The dragon is _intelligent!"_

Golden eyes huge, she flew toward the dragon like a bullet, knowing the bespectacled man would kill the creature if she couldn't find a way to save him. Bowen swished his robes back and drew his sword, stumbling toward the clearing where the dragon had fallen. He found that the creature was rising to it's feet and tugging vainly on the rope holding it hostage, but he stopped and sneered when he realized that Autumn was hacking at the ties holding him pinned to the ground. The girl's face was pale as she hacked at the ropes with the ice shards that had somehow attached themselves to her skin.

Bowen's lip curled and he tossed his long hair over his shoulder before he began to approach.

Autumn's head snapped up when she caught the sound his footsteps, and the dragon stopped biting at the bonds when her eyes widened. The nets were to small for him to untie by himself, and the cords were too well crafted for her to cut with her pathetic little ice blades: to get him free, they'd need a real weapon like a sword, and unfortunately… the only person who had such a weapon was the knight, and he was trying to use it for a reason totally opposite theirs.

Not a good thing.

"You actually had an accomplice!" Bowen stated coldly, polishing his sword as he stalked towards them. "Well, this is a twist I wasn't expecting: a human girl trying to help a dragon… but wait! If my eyes aren't deceiving me, I'd say that she's got something pretty strange sticking out of her wrists. I knew you weren't normal when I first set eyes on you, little girl: I needed a challenge, and fighting two opponents is more satisfying than one alone. I've heard witches can be vicious."

"I am _not_ a fucking _witch!"_ Autumn shrieked, resuming her attempt to cut the ropes. "What the hell is wrong with all you old-timey people! Yeah, I have freaky powers, that much is true, but who gives a fuck?! I never use them because they're dangerous! Plus, I really don't even know how! Just because I'm doing what I think is right doesn't mean I'm a witch!"

The dragon kept most of his focus on Bowen, crouching low to the ground with his teeth bared.

"She is harmless, but you aren't likely to get a challenge again when I'm done with you!" the dragon snarled, unhinging his knife-like tail and swinging it at Bowen. The man instantly leapt aside and swung at the tail with his sword. The dragon snarled again and finally hit Bowen with the flat it, knocking him into a tree before slicing it in half. The plant toppled to the ground and careened toward Autumn, who jumped away from the ropes and tumbled to the side with a startled shriek.

"Yikes, watch where you're swinging that thing!" Autumn squealed, pushing her hair out of her eyes as she sat up.

The dragon heard her cry, but ignored it and pounded his tail into the ground, following Bowen's movements as he rolled across the dirt. Clouds of dust flew into the air as the massive tail whacked again and again. Bowen seemed to get an idea and he rolled to where the tree trunk lay, leaping over it in one giant burst of energy, the dragon's tail came down on where he was just seconds before. It's tail lodged tightly into the log with a piercing crack and a squeak as the creature tried to yank it free.

"DRAT!" the dragon yelled, pulling to no avail.

"We're being a little bit over-confident, aren't we?" Bowen asked, feeling utterly satisfied that his plan had worked as he climbed to his feet. "I guess I win this match, you slithering serpent. Prepare to die by my hands."

"Hardly!" the dragon huffed, getting tired of all this. "If you win, you'll be out of work!"

"I won't quit until I rid the world of every last one of you!" Bowen spat, glaring darts at the creature.

"I _am_ the last one!" the dragon roared, rearing it's magnificent head and drawing in a huge breath of air.

Bowen recognized the danger and dove for cover as several fireballs were launched at him. Monstrous explosions ignited across the field and Autumn was thrown back against a tree from one of them. Her head connected with a branch on impact and she slid to the ground, half unconscious with the world spinning in circles. As the dust, smoke, and dirt cleared, the dragon was vexed to find that Bowen was still standing—albeit with a tiny fire flickering on his shoulder… which he noticed right away.

"You're just trying to save your scaly hide!" the man growled, slapping the flame out crossly.

"You haven't noticed your hunting getting harder lately?" the dragon asked, frustrated that his fire hadn't worked.

"I got one just the other day, so I'd say the hunting is fine!" Bowen retorted, lifting his sword with a cold stare.

"It was you who killed the young Scarred one, then?" the dragon snarled, clearly hurt by his statement. "We were the last of our kind, you murderous human. Tell me, though… how much gold did her poor, tattered skin place in your little purse?"

"Shut up!" Bowen roared, but the dragon swiped his paw at him when he wasn't expecting it. "I'll kill you!"

Once he was thrown aside, the dragon slammed his giant heavy paw over the knight's chest.

Autumn's eyes fluttered open, but the world was spinning and everything seemed vague. Slowly crawling to her feet, the small girl staggered toward the man who was pinned against the ground. If she didn't do something, he would die and she would be left alone in a strange world. Stumbling over to where the man was pinned, she fell to her knees as the world tilted and grasped the dragon's paw, pulling at it weakly.

"Stop fighting," she whispered weakly, head swimming with stars and pain. "Stop it… please, no more."

"Be quiet, you stupid witch!" Bowen shouted, smacking her in the face; she crashed into the ground and lay still.

"The girl does have a point," the dragon said with a disapproving frown at his actions, "I don't want to kill you… in fact, I never did. So, if you can stop this unsavory madness, I will let you up without any hesitation."

"Alright, fine, I'll stop... for now," Bowen spat, giving Autumn's immobile form a scowl as the dragon removed his paw. The man slowly got up shook his robes out as he caught his breath, but when he realized that Autumn's bangs were sticky with blood, alarm involuntarily swept through him.

He was even further alarmed when he saw that she was unconscious.

"I think I can help her, knight," the dragon stated, watching as the man knelt down and inspected her injury. "Dragon fire has two properties: healing and destruction. If you let me bathe her body in my healing fire, she will be well on the morrow."

"Why should I trust you?" the knight snorted angrily, ripping a long strip of cloth from his robes and cleaning the small girl's gash with it. "For all I know, you could kill this… _witch_ without even trying: then I'd be at a loss. I don't trust you."

"Give me the benefit of the doubt," the serpentine creature reasoned. "I might even have a suggestion that could help with your problems, one that will enable you to make a living even after the dragons are gone. Now, let me heal her with my fire."

"Fine," Bowen snapped, looking up at the beast with a suspicious scowl when the beast drew in a deep breath and blew gently over the small brunette's torso: her body was instantly engulfed in blue flames that flickered and winked out with little sparkling lights. When the last embers disappeared, her injuries were healed and the undersized girl was merely sleeping.

"Now, about that suggestion," the dragon stated smoothly. "You'd have to place a little more trust in me."

"What did you have in mind?" Bowen demanded, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.


	3. Chapter 3

** Chapter Two: Prophetic Names  
**

Autumn woke up when the sun began shining on her face, but oddly enough… she'd had a vivid dream, but she couldn't seem to recall most of it. The only firm detail that stuck to her mind was the prompt feeling that large... almost gentle hands had brushed her hair out of her face while warm lips kissed around her neck. Although, the weirdest part of the dream was that she could almost feel those warm lips still lingering on her skin. Slowly sitting up as the remnants of the dream dispersed, Autumn stared at the ground and smiled a bit: the memory of a silhouette with shaggy white hair lifting away from her lips was fading away into nothing. Soon, all that was left to hold onto was the image of striking red eyes and white hair: that was all.

"Good morning," Bowen greeted warily, stretching his muscular limbs. "I retrieved your bags from the area above the cave yesterday."

"Thanks… but don't bother next time," the girl replied, rubbing her eyes. "Do you always get up this early?"

"If I can't sleep, yes," Bowen replied, walking over to his horse. "It is a man's job to stay alert."

"I can't believe I'm asking this," Autumn murmured after a moment of silence, "but what's on the agenda for today?"

"Wait," Bowen scoffed, glancing at her in surprise, "do you mean you're planning on following the dragon and myself?"

"You and the dragon? What did I miss while I was out of it?" Autumn spluttered in shock, jaw going slack. "You two looked like you were about to kill each other yesterday, so how the hell did you get to be all buddy-buddy today?"

"We made an agreement," Bowen stated dryly; Autumn realized from the way he spoke that she wasn't going to be getting any immediate answers from him, so she rolled her eyes and climbed to her feet with a tired yawn; then, after shaking out her slightly disheveled hair, she stalked over to Bowen and proceeded to shove him behind a tree. "Hey! What are you doing?"

"Changing," Autumn grumbled tiredly. "I'm not gonna wear my school clothes because they're _still_ soaked, and I just so happen to have a spare outfit inside my bag. You just… stay right there while I change into something else, okay?"

"Whatever you say," Bowen sighed, rolling his eyes as he leaned against the tree. It seemed to take forever for her to change clothes, and soon the man became restless. "I still need to pack my saddlebags and gather provisions, but she's delaying my progress with her silly primping and preening!"

"Oh, shut up!" Autumn finally grumbled. "You can come out now, but I'll kick you in the balls if you laugh at me."

After being held hostage behind a tree for fifteen minutes, those words were music to his ears.

However, the knight froze the instant his eyes landed on Autumn's outfit, and it took everything in his power to keep his jaw from falling off: the girl was wearing a pair of Daisy-shorts, a much-too-big yellow blouse, and she had exchanged her dress shoes for a pair of calf-high hiking boots. Even more shocking to the man was the fact that she had easily pulled her long bangs behind her head and tied them into a beautiful braid using two yellow ribbons: the style could effectively keep her hair out of her eyes without actually forcing her to mess with the back of it.

She was giving off an extremely adventurous look, and despite his obvious dislike for the strange brunette, her futuristic choice in clothing made her look unbelievably cute. That in itself was an unpleasant sensation that made him feel prickly all over, for several different reasons.

"Er, little lass," Bowen coughed, face turning bright red as he glanced away, "aren't those clothes a little too… revealing?"

"Not where I come from," she retorted, shooting him a glare. "Plus, these are the only clothes I have aside from my uniform."

"Fair enough," the man sighed, scowling behind his glasses: he already knew that his eyes were going to have trouble keeping to themselves. Later that day, Bowen rode into a nearby town with Autumn clinging onto his horse for dear life: although she was riding in front of Bowen, she felt extremely awkward with the knight's arms wrapped around her torso. The brunette didn't like human contact very much because her uneasiness could trigger her abilities if she wasn't careful. Plus, in situations like these, she usually ended up hurting the people she was touching.

"Look out!" a male voice screamed, startling her. "Azan has gone mad! He's after you!"

"I beg your pardon?" Bowen called in surprise, turning to see who had shouted at them; that's when the man with the crossbow from the day before tore out of the grass and leapt straight at the girl sitting in front of the knight.

"STOP!" Autumn shrieked, thrusting her hands out in an attempt to keep the man away.

However, she jumped when a lightning bolt unexpectedly blasted out of her palm, leaving an instant trail of light as it cracked into his chest. Both the knight and the girl lost their balance when their horse reared, and they each tumbled off in different directions: Autumn landed hard on her back, staring upside down after the mare when she raced off in fright. Bowen was frantically looking for his glasses when she sat up, rubbing her throbbing back.

"Witch!" the man roared, padding toward her with demented green eyes. "I'll rip your eyes out!"

"Get AWAY from me!" Autumn cried, clumsily staggering to her feet and bolting in the other direction. "I'm not a witch!"

However, the man pulled out a whip and snapped it at her: the weapon twisted around her left arm with a stinging pain and viciously held her in place; when he violently jerked her around, Autumn twirled dizzyingly before slamming face-first into the dirt. She instantly rolled over and lifted both hands into the air, aiming her palms at the approaching archer as she glared upside down.

"What's this?" he growled, warily eyeing her odd position. "Planning to use a spell on me?"

"Get away from me right now! Otherwise I'll turn you into a pile of ash!" Autumn cried, mouth trembling as she stared at him with wide eyes. In truth, those words sounded weak and pathetic leaving her mouth, but the look burning in her yellow eyes would have told anyone with an observant personality that she was dead serious: it wasn't a threat, it was a promise.

"Sorry, but there's no way that a witch could curse a Believer like me!" the man sneered.

"I am _not_ a _witch!"_ Autumn squealed, kicking her legs like a child throwing a tantrum. "Jesus Christ, are you clinically _insane?!"_

"Even if I am, I'm the one with the power here," the man snickered; before she could react he clamped a huge hand down on both of her arms and lifted her into the air. The burly man's strength nearly crushed both of her wrists, but she held in the cry of pain and grit her teeth in anger when he held her up. "Well, well, well! You're fairly beautiful... for a _witch."_

"E-excuse me?" Autumn choked out, golden eyes snapping open wide in shock. "Was that supposed to be a compliment or should I be worried about the things going through your mind right now? Because I have a nasty suspicion it's the latter."

"You're right, it _is_ the latter: I think I'm going to have some fun," the large man rumbled, green eyes boring thoughtfully into hers as he leaned towards her face. When the man's tongue slipped out of his bearded mouth and slid across her cheek, the girl's eyes opened even wider and she flailed around like crazy, squealing in revulsion even as he began licking her neck.

"N-no! No way! There is no way in hell! Let go of me!" Autumn screeched, kicking her legs around. "LET GO!"

Her breath hitched high as a strange, unearthly feeling suddenly blazed throughout her body: mind going blank, the small girl gave into her primal instincts and sent a flexible kick straight into the man's jaw, causing him to stagger back with a surprised howl of pain. The moment he dropped her, Autumn lifted her hands and pulled water from the air—withdrawing it in a sparkling spray of moisture. She twisted her slender arms above her head as the streams encircled her body, spinning round and round until the droplets were sucked into two growing pillars above her wrists. A surge of icy energy physically attached the liquid to her skin, and Autumn twisted like a dancer before coming to a graceful halt, holding her left hand stretched out and her right arm drawn in.

Shining strands of her thigh-length brown hair twisted in the wind as her sparkling eyes bored into the man's face.

The archer roared in fury and lunged at her, but the small girl whirled under the blow and sent the lecher staggering with a fierce roundhouse kick to the gut. Then, Autumn jumped as high as she could and slammed her fist into the man's throat, burying the frozen blade deep into his body. When he let out a strangled cry, Autumn slammed the other frozen sword into his throat next to the first one—using all of her weight to cause him the most pain.

The man stared at her with a hazed, agonized expression of pain on his contorted face as he reached up to touch the two blades of ice that were protruding through his neck. When he fell to his knees, she pulled her wrists free and leapt backwards, twisting her body like a ballet star and spinning around as white fire roared to life above her palms. She spun with the flames, letting them follow her movements and gather in intensity before she sent them flying at the dying man's body—causing him to scream as he slowly crumbled into ashes.

"Promise made," Autumn whispered, frozen swords dissolving into moisture, "promise... kept..."

As her eye color slowly began to return to normal and emotion returned to her face, a cloud of shimmering blue sparkles exploded around her upper torso without her knowledge. The glittering sparkles violently swirled around, outlining two glowing silhouettes that slowly began to look like the an angel's wings. The vague shapes disappeared few seconds after appearing, though, and the girl had no idea that they'd even been there in the first place.

In fact, she was oblivious to everything due to the utter shock of what she'd just done.

"Miss, are you okay?!" a man suddenly cried, sliding down the hill as he ran toward her.

"That was amazing!" another man called.

"How did you do that?!" a third shouted—and seemingly all at once, a group of about fifteen to sixteen men surrounded the small girl and bombarded her with questions. Autumn clutched her head and slowly sank to her knees as their sentences slowly turned into nothing but a deafening, incomprehensible hum of noise: then, loud screams went up all around her.

"DRAGON! THERE'S A DRAGON COMING! RUN!" one of the men cried, and everyone broke into a panic. Autumn looked up and saw the dragon she'd met the other day flying over the field, motioning for the villagers to move in a sarcastic kind of way. He blew a stream of fire onto the field, causing huge explosions, but then he changed course and blew a fireball at a mill, blowing it up and sending wood and hay flying sky-high. Bowen spurred his horse into a canter and rode up to the Lord of the town, who had run from his house in such a flurry that he had forgotten his shirt.

"Bothersome creatures, dragons!" Bowen trilled. "Unless you pay me five hundred pounds in gold, I can't help you!"

"Fine, you've got a deal!" the Lord shouted at him. "Just kill it!"

"Gladly," Bowen sneered, rolling his eyes with a huge smile.

Fifteen minutes later, Autumn was waiting on the bank of a gigantic lake that gave her an impression of sheer cleanliness.

"The air is so much cleaner in this time period," Autumn mumbled, slowly looking around. "I'm actually kind of amazed."

The small girl actually found herself enjoying the sweet breeze that rippled her thigh-length brown hair.

Passing travelers had asked why her eyes were such an odd color and why her clothes were so strange, so she'd made up a story about how she'd come from a large city that resided far across the oceans. It was an odd story, but believable enough that villagers and travelers alike bought it. Autumn turned her golden eyes toward the sound of a commotion to find that Bowen was standing in front of what looked like some sort of giant crossbow-catapult thing. The frame was built of a sturdy wood, and it holstered what looked to be a wicked giant arrow.

Bowen had his sword drawn and ready, but Autumn was simply waiting for this to be over so they could be on their way.

The sudden concussion of flapping wings could be heard, making Autumn wince: she didn't like the vibrations because they made her ears pop. Bowen squared his shoulders: when the dragon was exactly in his firing range, he brought his sword down on a scraggly looking rope and launched the arrow-spear into the air. Autumn's jaw dropped in disbelief when the dragon caught it and pretended to be shot, giving a wild cry as he plummeted to the blue lake below. With a huge splash, he hit the water and vanished in a cloud of water and spray.

The villagers who had been watching nearby let out a cheer. Autumn looked away with a grimace when Bowen collected the money from the baffled lord... who still wasn't wearing a shirt... and continued frowning even as they mounted his horse and galloped away into the wilderness. Every time Bowen's coins let out a clink as he happily counted his money, Autumn flinched and struggled not to send a wave of fire shooting behind her.

After only a few leagues of being out of the town, however, the small girl couldn't take anymore.

"Let me off of this thing!" Autumn snapped, leaping nimbly off the horse—which was at full gallop. Bowen gave a shout of alarm when the small girl flew off the saddle, nearly throwing him off balance; Autumn scowled and jogged ahead in taciturn silence, watching as the dragon flared his wings. When Bowen finally caught up to her, the girl turned to find him glaring at her. "What's with _that_ look? Did I do something to make you angry?"

"Yes: your general recklessness constantly causes trouble for me," the man bluntly retorted, pushing his glasses up his nose with a haughty expression. Autumn rolled her eyes and flipped the bird before sashaying away from him; the dragon chuckled at the girl's flamboyant attitude since she didn't really seem to care if anyone noticed her abnormalities. "You know you're acting like a child, don't you?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, but actually... I _am_ a child, remember?" she retorted, running a hand through her hair. "Get over it."

"You're not human, are you?" the dragon asked curiously. "You certainly don't act like one."

Autumn instantly turned to glare at him.

"I don't know what I am," the girl mumbled, signaling for them to let the subject drop by adding, "so don't ask again."

The sun was setting by that point, but was still quite high in the sky. The trio walked in a triangle-like formation: Autumn was walking in the front with her small her hands clasped behind her back while Bowen and the dragon calmly followed her. After a while, Autumn noticed that she had gone too far ahead and had just started heading back when she saw that Bowen and the dragon were talking. Unable to resist the temptation of eavesdropping, the fell back a little and acted inconspicuous in an effort to catch their conversation.

"Do you delight in reminding me of that?" the dragon demanded. "Yes, I do long for death, but I fear it as well."

"Why does he sound so sad?" Autumn asked herself, frowning when the creature trailed off. However, she paused and hid behind a tree when Bowen stopped his horse only three yards away from her and turned in the saddle.

"Why?" the man demanded, raising his eyebrows in disbelief. "Aside from your obvious misery, what is there to lose?"

"My soul," the dragon rumbled quietly, looking at the man with glittering golden eyes.

Autumn clutched her chest as a familiar sickening pain lanced her heart and she leaned against the tree as recognition flashed into her awareness. She recognized the tone of voice the dragon was using: it was the emotionless tenor that all living beings called forth to cover up some sort of excruciating past agony, and she knew this very well because she herself had used the exact same tone thousands of times before.

Sympathy roared to life inside her heart as she finally made herself visible.

"Come on you two!" she called gently, giving them a wave. "There's a good spot to camp near that cliff!"

 

 

 

 

 

**TXXXXXT**

Bowen and his companions were indeed an odd group.

For someone who had sworn to rid the world of dragons, one would find it ironic that the knight had one such fire-breather in his company; for an unloved, time-traveling girl who had sworn off friends altogether, it was a freak twist of fate to be stuck with two new possible routes of betrayal. At the moment, the three of them were settling down for the night and camping away from the villages. Bowen was trying to start a fire and cook a rabbit he'd caught; the dragon was lying comfortably on one side of the clearing; Autumn lay next to the large beast, brown hair spread over her body like a blanket as she held her head propped up on her arms. The two of them were watching Bowen with identical expressions of amusement as he tried to light the fire and get the food going… with no success at all.

"I can," the dragon tried to say, but a look from the frustrated man said that he obviously didn't want to hear it.

"Come on, Bowen," Autumn murmured, rolling her eyes at the bespectacled man's stubbornness. "Let him help you."

"I really can…" the reptile repeated.

Bowen simply growled at the offer and kept trying to light the fire, which made Autumn roll her eyes before huddling up into the dragon's sheltering side. The creature glanced at her curiously when she curled up into a little ball next to him and stared off into space, but eventually his gaze returned to the frustrated man in front of him. His tail flicked across the rocks as he watched: he was greatly humored at the man's problem.

However, when Bowen refused to acknowledge him, the dragon snorted a jet of yellow-orange flame onto the wood that Bowen was trying so hard to light. The man let out a yelp, but the dragon ceased the stream of nose-fire when he glared.

"Oops!" the dragon chuckled, blinking when the knight gave him a peeved look. "I hope you like it well done."

Even though she was facing away from the fire, Autumn let out a small giggle when she realized what had just occurred and covered her mouth to muffle it. However, she shrank down and laughed even harder when the man at her. After the sun finally set and Bowen had eaten his food, Autumn scooted closer to the dragon and closed her eyes as she hummed.

"Autumn, may I ask something?" the dragon suddenly inquired, nudging her with his nose. "I have an inquiry."

"What is it?" the girl mumbled, not opening her eyes.

"I'd like to know the name of song you are singing," the creature rumbled. "You've been humming it all day."

Autumn's eyes snapped open and for a long moment she said nothing at all: her lungs had locked up with a horrible ache and she had been frozen by a new reality that had abruptly smashed down on her without warning. She hadn't even realized what she'd been singing until he'd asked... but now, everything made sense.

It made so much sense that she was frightened by it.

"Autumn?" Bowen asked, sitting up from his bedroll and looking at her in concern. "Are you well?"

"What did I say?" the dragon asked, glancing at Bowen worriedly when the girl slowly sat up and shakily pulled her backpack over to her. Her companions watched with concerned eyes as she unzipped it and pulled out her I-pod: she stared at the screen for a long time, as if pondering something... then, with an abruptness that startled them profoundly, the small girl's head whipped up toward the sky.

She was staring straight at the star constellation, Draco, with yellow eyes that radiated her disbelieving terror.

"Oh, my God... no way!" she whispered, glancing up at the dragon and staring into his golden eyes. "There's no way!"

Autumn's face slowly began to drain of color as she glanced down at her I-pod, scrolling through her favorite songs until the cursor landed on the title, Dragon Heart. With a horrible feeling in her stomach, the teenager pressed _play_ on the device and the opening notes began to waft into the evening air; Bowen went rigid in amazement as the orchestra music began to echo out of the player, and he instantly stared at her with dumbfounded eyes.

"Good God!" the knight exclaimed in astonishment. "What _is_ that?! How is it capable of doing such a thing?"

"It's something _my_ people made," Autumn woodenly stated, lying back down and burying her face in the dragon's warm scales. She had finally come to a conclusion, one that made her stomach curl: somehow, after her family had been murdered and she'd lost control, she had been transported not to the past... but straight into the middle of a movie she had always loved.

 _Only... now things are a bit different than they were in a movie,_ Autumn realized, curling up against the wind. _In the movie, Bowen had blonde hair and light blue eyes, along with black metal armor instead of robes... Not only that, I don't ever remember him having glasses and a clean-shaven face… but his cocky attitude seems fairly similar. Then there's the dragon, Draco… he's much more magnificent than the movie ever gave him credit for. I guess this just proves that all those crappy special effects from the 90's can't compare to the real thing._

About an hour later, Autumn was fast asleep against the dragon's side and the music player shut off on its own.

"Why does she look so sad?" Bowen asked, making the dragon glance at Autumn's face; indeed, even though she was fast asleep, her features were pulled into a broken expression: she looked like she would start crying at any moment. Neither one of them spoke as the evening dissolved into night, and then the stars came out in a twinkling array of light. Bowen ignored the splendor and started to tie up his horse for the night, removing the bags and the shield studded with dragon's teeth and claws.

The fire-breather gave these all a forlorn glance.

"You must have hated us very much," the creature rumbled, watching as Bowen sat down again on his sleeping roll.

"I only hated one of you, and those I killed were because I wanted to kill him," the man replied, putting the blanket over himself and staring at the sky. "I never really found him, though… so if you're the last dragon, he must be dead already."

"What was he like?" the creature asked, flicking his tail. "This dragon you hated, I mean."

"He only had half a heart," Bowen muttered, all of his old bitterness coming back in an instant, "but what makes me sick is the fact that it poisoned an innocent boy."

"Einon was no innocent!" the dragon roared, jerking Autumn awake. "He poisoned the heart, not the dragon!"

"How the hell do you know this?" Bowen interrogated, straightening his glasses suspiciously as the dragon before him pointedly avoided eye contact. "How do you know about this tale in the first place, dragon?"

"What's going on?" Autumn sleepily croaked out, rubbing her yellow eyes as she glanced between the males; after realizing that he'd just put himself in a dangerous situation, the dragon scratched his head with a single claw.

"Uh, all of us dragons know that story!" he quickly explained, sweeping his paw for emphasis. "What was supposed to be a gift became the doom of everyone! A spoiled child was given godly power that he used for destruction!"

"You're wrong, dragon! I knew Einon! I taught him and I showed him wrong from right!" Bowen spat, bristling in fury as he glared at the creature. However, the dragon could see the hint of doubt in his eyes and the memory of Bowen's words on the day they had first met came back in a rush. ' _I serve the father only for the sake of the son. All my hopes rest on him._ '

"I see," the creature murmured, bringing his head before the knight's. "He betrayed you exactly like he betrayed the dragon whose heart he broke, so now you're blaming the dragon to remove the blame from his deceitful shoulders."

"That's not true, dragon!" Bowen spat, lip curling in disgust.

"STOP CALLING ME 'DRAGON'!" the creature roared. "I have a name!"

"Well?" Bowen barked, pushing his glasses up with a frown. "What is it, then?"

"You couldn't possibly pronounce it in your tongue!" the dragon scoffed.

"Try me," Bowen provoked.

"It's—AAARGH!"

"EYAAAH!"

Bowen flinched when Autumn let out a shriek and the dragon let out a roar: at the exact same moment, their chests began glowing with a flaming red light. Autumn convulsed in agony, clutching her chest with a ripping scream as the dragon clawed at his own chest and fell over, toppling several trees. The two of them writhed on the ground, teeth clenched tightly and bodies shaking: the knight instantly got up and tried to stay calm, but why he wanted to help a dragon he didn't know.

Autumn was a given since she was a young girl, but he shouldn't have felt obligated to help a dragon.

He soaked a blanket in water and ripped it in half before draping it onto the seemingly burning wounds the two of them had sported. Neither Autumn nor the dragon seemed to notice what he was doing and simply continued to writhe in pain. Autumn eventually fainted, but the dragon was stronger and stayed conscious despite the agony: he was no longer twisting about, but his eyes were still shut tight against the sting. He winced every now and again, but other than that he was fine. Bowen placed a cool blanket over the last of the graze, causing a slight cloud of steam to rise.

"Oh dear," the dragon murmured, blinking rapidly before addressing the knight, who was kneeling beside the unconscious girl lying on the ground. Bowen's gaze filled with concern when he saw the wound on the her chest. "Thank you. It's passed now.."

"What on earth was it?" the man asked, frowning as he treated the girl's wound. "I've never seen anything like that before, and it didn't just affect _you..._ it also affected Autumn. Can you explain to me what just happened to the both of you?"

The dragon looked away.

"It's just some old complaint that acts up every now and again," he sighed dismissively, rolling over on his side. "I don't know why she was affected by it, though... that's never happened before."

"I'm sorry if I said anything that upset you earlier," Bowen grumbled. "If that's what caused it—"

"It wasn't you... not you," the dragon interrupted, setting his head down on his paws and looking at Autumn. "Don't worry."

"Still, you should relax just in case it does flare up again," Bowen said calmly, blinking against the light of the fire; the dragon stared at him, then glanced back at Autumn before nodding in agreement. The man then stood up and went to sit next to the small girl, watching as the dragon began to snore. He knew that the teenager wasn't asleep after taking a look at her face: the sadness from earlier was no longer present, which was a dead giveaway that she was merely pretending.

Her school uniform fluttered in the breeze as he stared at her fair features.

"Where exactly do you come from, Autumn?" he asked, watching as she flinched and slowly opened her vibrant yellow eyes.

"You already know the answer to that question," Autumn retorted, unwilling to disclose her history to him.

"Don't you miss your family?" Bowen asked; however, he instantly realized that he'd hit a particularly bad nerve when the small girl twitched and her face contorted slightly; then her expression smoothed out again and she let out a deep sigh.

"I don't _have_ a family," Autumn quietly replied, grinning at him in a dangerous manner. "There's nobody for me to miss."

"That's a respectable answer," he murmured, leaning back and staring at the sky. "Although... not a very pleasant one."

For a long time, the two of them lay side by side together in silence.

"It's because I'm afraid of you that I'm acting mean, Bowen," Autumn finally whispered, staring up at the sky with a tormented expression: the man frowned deeply, especially since it didn't look right on the face of someone so young. "I'm not clever, or funny, or brave… and because I was born a little bit different than everyone else, people who were supposed to protect me ended up hurting me on purpose. Because of the way I look... and all of the issues that make up who I am... I've been forced to go through things that would make your heart sick if I ever told you about them. Being afraid of the world is natural, but being afraid of yourself is a different story."

"We're all afraid of something," the knight stated calmly. "Quite the contrary, I think you're very brave: you stood up to me in order to protect a dragon, if I remember correctly, and that's something not even a war-torn soldier would do. You're full of bravery and cleverness, Autumn… you just haven't realized it yet."

"That's probably the best advice you've given me since I met you," the girl stated with a suspicious stare that made him chuckle a little. "Anyway, thanks for listening to my troubles, and… uh, I'm sorry for throwing that rock at you. It didn't hurt too badly, did it?"

"No, and I forgive you," the man sighed.

"I don't want to be here, Bowen..." Autumn sighed, giving him a little grin before she lay back down, "but I don't even have a home to go back to, now... so at the moment, wherever you two idiots are is where I'll be."

After that, she rolled over and curled up against the cold... but Bowen was actually relatively stunned by something he hadn't even realized until this conversation. He had just seen the girl really smiling for the first time since he'd met her: it had touched her unique golden eyes and made them sparkle in a very beautiful way... and for some reason that he didn't understand, he wanted to see that sparkle more often.

It was another hour before the man spoke, but by that point she was dozing off next to him.

Bowen was staring at the dragon constellation with a thoughtful look on his face.

"Draco," Bowen mumbled, glancing at the glittering sky as an idea struck him; when the girl drowsily opened her eyes and looked up at him with a sleep-filled gaze, the knight smiled a little and nodded toward the sleeping dragon. "You know, kid, I think I'll call him Draco: it means _dragon_ in scholar's speech, and it's the name of the constellation right up there."

"I really have been sent straight into the world of _Dragon Heart,_ " Autumn mumbled sleepily, giving the man a happy nod. "Maybe I'll pay Mary Poppins a visit after this… I've always wanted to dance with a penguin."

Without another word, the girl curled back up on the cold ground and fell asleep again.

Bowen blinked in confusion for a few moments, but when her hair slid across her soft face, he sighed and draped his blanket over her shoulders. Then he folded his arms to his chest and put his head back, continuing to look at the sky as he pondered the name he wanted to give the dragon. When the scaly creature woke up a little while later, to his mild surprise he found that Bowen was still awake and looking to the stars next to Autumn, who was sleeping soundly.

"Have you been watching over the two of us all night long?" the dragon asked, blinking in shock.

"I've been thinking," Bowen stated, glancing down at Autumn and gently brushing a brown strand away from her forehead.

"Really?" the dragon inquired, following the man's gaze and looking at the sleeping girl. "About what?"

"Many things," Bowen declared, slowly standing up so he could look the fire-breather in the eyes. "Mostly about what to call you, since you're so persistent about not being called 'Dragon' any longer. Honestly, I think I've found you a name."

"Really now?" the dragon replied, chuckling. "You say that as though you reached up and plucked it from the sky."

"Funny you should say that," the knight replied, pointing at one particular cluster of stars. "Look up there, my friend: do you see that group of stars?"

"I know those stars very well," the dragon replied, following his gaze with a wistful one of his own.

"Do you see the shape that they make?" Bowen asked.

"A dragon," the creature answered, wondering where this was going.

"They call it Draco," Bowen explained, "and it means 'dragon' in the scholar's speech."

"So, instead of calling me _'dragon'_ in your term," the creature teased, "you call me _'dragon'_ in some other term? How kind."

However, his grin fell a little when he realized that the man was taking his reply very seriously.

"You're right, it's silly," the man sighed, solemnly removing his glasses and turning to lay back down next to Autumn. "Sorry."

"No, I would be honored to be named after those stars… I truly would," the newly-dubbed Draco murmured, looking back up at the stars; he repeated the name to himself, letting it roll off his tongue, "Draco. Thank you very much, Bowen."

"Draco," Autumn whispered brokenly in her sleep, echoing his name in her dreams; the moment she said the dragon's name, a single tear slid down the side of her face and ran into her glossy brown hair like a diamond. "Don't die… no..."

 

 

 

 

**TXXXXXT**

Sometime during the middle of the night, Draco woke up with a jolt and blinked around for a few moments. After taking in Bowen's sleeping form and the dying fire, he chuckled and once again settled down to go back to sleep. However, he halted when he felt something moving against the scales of his underbelly and abruptly lifted his wing, scanning the dark tent it had formed with an alert expression; he blinked in surprise when he saw that Autumn was snuggled up in a little ball against his side.

"You're awake, aren't you?" he asked, noticing that her face was devoid of the sadness he'd seen earlier.

"More than I want to be, yes," the girl peeped, opening her eyes and peering at him awkwardly. "Sorry if I woke you up."

"Answer me something?" he chuckled, resting his chin on his foreleg so he could watch her.

"Sure," Autumn replied, snuggling back down and peeking at him from above her arm. "What do you want to know?"

"You act as though you expect Bowen to hurt you, yet appear to be fine whenever you're near me," the dragon stated with a gentle voice. "I've been wondering why… and I have also been pondering why you stood against him so I could get away with my hide intact. I can't seem to figure out what you could gain from it, so tell me… why are you on my side?"

"I don't really know," Autumn instantly murmured, glancing away in an effort to avoid his gaze; he said nothing, merely watched her until she timidly glanced up at him again, blushed, and averted her eyes a second time.

"I'm a beast who can wipe out an entire village in seconds," Draco pointed out. "I'm much more dangerous than Bowen."

"No, you're not!" Autumn protested, putting a hand on the warm scales of his underbelly. "You're nice!"

"How do you know?" the dragon inquired, staring at her with skeptical yellow eyes. "You've only known me for a few hours."

"Because… because…" Autumn stammered, throat tightening in pain, "because if you were a monster, you wouldn't have given Bowen all those warnings, and you wouldn't have let me go when you caught me in that field. You would have killed both of us the moment you had a chance: that's what a monster does when it's being provoked."

"Quite true," Draco rumbled, lifting his head looking at her with furrowed brows when she wiped her eyes. "I'm sorry for upsetting you, little one… I suppose it's been so long since a human has defended one of my kind that I became confused."

"It's…" Autumn mumbled, face twisting up as she struggled with something, "it's not your fault."

 _She's hiding something from me,_ the dragon suddenly realized, blinking in surprise. _Her scent has changed, as well... she's afraid right now… very, very afraid, judging by how much fear is radiating off of her. What could be going through her mind right now to make her feel such terror all of a sudden? Even more strangely… how am I not the source of this intense fear? I get the feeling I must tread cautiously from this point on... who knows what this girl is really feeling?_

"Are you certain it's not my fault," Draco asked, eyeing her suspiciously, "or is there something else on your mind?"

"I-I… a-am I a murderer?" Autumn whispered shrilly, making him go still. "I… I killed someone today, and I can't stop thinking about it. He tried to kill me twice when I first arrived, and t-then he tried to rape me, but I lost control and I… I-I…"

"Oh…" Draco murmured, eyes softening immensely when she trailed off and shakily began to cry. "Oh, I see."

"Why do people hate me so much?" Autumn mewed, startling him out of his thoughts. "I never do anything to draw attention, but somehow they know I'm different."

"That is something that I cannot understand, either, but I have a suggestion that might help," Draco replied gently; when she wiped her eyes, he ducked his head under his wing to meet her tearful gaze. "You are very unlike any human I've met during the course of my long life, and it would please me greatly if you would tell me the truth about who you really are."

"I-I can't say anything without sounding crazy, though," Autumn stammered, eyes becoming frantic, "There's a problem with the truth, and if I'm not careful I could end up getting hurt. When I said that I wasn't from around here, I meant that I _really_ wasn't from around here! Things are… different where I come from, so you'll probably think I'm nuts if I explain it."

 _Or a witch,_ Autumn silently added, cringing at the thought.

"Try me," Draco retorted, giving her a scary-looking grin that involuntarily made her giggle: it was so unexpected that she couldn't help the laughter. However, the giggles quickly died away and she couldn't do anything but stare at him: a part of her wanted to tell the dragon where she was really from, but her common sense was screaming for her to keep her mouth shut.

"How do people react to… magic around here?" Autumn finally asked. "As in... spells and other things."

 _Magic?_ Draco wondered, eyes widening in surprise. _No one speaks of that so openly these days… unless she truly doesn't know any better. Frankly, the last magic user I've seen died off several years before this Kingdom was made._

 _"_ As far as I know, they don't react well to it at all," Draco replied, blinking at the girl. "Those who are caught practicing it around here are… uh, well, you don't need to know that. It's quite gruesome, and a little one like you doesn't need to know."

"I'm pretty sure I already do know: they're tortured and burned at the stake, right?" Autumn asked, closing her eyes in dismay when he blinked in surprise. "The reason I know is… well, it's not a matter of _where_ I'm from so much as _when."_

"When?" the dragon repeated, frowning at her. "I don't think I understand… what are you trying to say?"

"Somehow… I don't even know how… I was transported here from almost six hundred years into the future," Autumn explained, lowering her head in fright when his eyes went wide. "I was born in the year nineteen-ninety-seven, but the present time for me right now is supposed to be two-thousand-and-fourteen. Then I ended up here by accident: one minute I'm, uh… f-freaking out, the next there's this weird energy wave exploding out of my body. Then it's spreading out everywhere before coming back and slamming into me… and when I wake up, I'm sitting in the middle of a grain field. I run around until I start getting shot at by the crazy man I ki… told you about. I'm from another time… maybe another world. I don't really know for certain, but all I know is that THIS place is not where I'm from!"

Draco stared at her for a long moment, struggling to comprehend what she was saying: Autumn was certainly telling what she believed was the truth, and he only knew this because of the subtle changes in her scent. But still… how could she have come from another time or world without some sort of proof? Frankly, her expression while she'd said it disturbed him. She looked as though she were terrified of merely mentioning traveling back in time.

 _If there's a Dragon's Heaven, who's to say that there aren't other places set aside from this plane of existence?_ Draco reasoned with himself, frowning when Autumn buried her face in her skinny arms. _There's something wrong with all of this, though… and I know it's not good. Why is she be so distraught over being sent back in time? Unless she can't… oh… oh, dear…_

"You can't go home, can you?" Draco asked, shock spreading across his features. "Oh, my, that _is_ a problem."

"You think?" Autumn whined, miserably rolling onto her back. "I don't even know why I'm here! I've trapped myself with a man who hates me and I'm in danger of being burned alive! I want to be a normal girl like Maki! I mean, she's… um…"

"She's what?" the dragon coaxed gently, though he still frowned a little upon hearing the unfamiliar name.

"She's safe. Happy. Loved. Wanted. Take your pick, because I'm not any of those," Autumn muttered, curling up against the dragon's side again and closing her eyes, even though she was very aware of his piercing yellow gaze on her back.

"Why do you place so much trust in me?" Draco murmured once she was close to falling asleep.

"Because the only thing that kept me going these last nine years is the love my father had for dragons," Autumn murmured automatically, snuggling closer to his side: she had no inclination of what she was saying due to the fact that she was almost asleep, so her words were simple but completely honest. "The things he used to read when I was little were always about dragons making peace between others. Papa always said that dragons were gentle beings who were misunderstood because of their frightening appearances, and he said that we were like dragons since humans feared us once they discovered we existed."

"And, what are you, exactly?" Draco asked, eyes widening in shock. "Aren't you a human?"

"No... but I don't remember specifically what I am because my head got hurt in a really bad car accident," Autumn mumbled, yawning as sleep covered her mind with soothing fingers. "After I woke up in the hospital, I couldn't remember anything but the books my Papa always read to me. I sort of remember that he _did_ say we weren't like humans, though, so maybe I'm a mutant or something."

Draco stared at her after she finally fell asleep, unable to break himself out of the shock he'd felt upon hearing her words. She had spoken the truth, of that much he was certain, but now he found himself with more questions than he had answers for… and most of them he knew she couldn't answer, for she didn't know herself.


	4. Chapter 4

   **Chapter Three: Kidnapped**   


_The darkness was different this time._

_There was no moldy abyss... there was no liquid falling into a puddle... there was no coppery scent filling the air... there was only an endless black abyss that stretched on forever in front of her. Unable to see and not knowing what her next step would bring… normally it would have been frightening, but somehow it was different._

_She found this kind of darkness to be comforting._

_A dim light appeared at the end of the tunnel and her gaze lifted in time to see a silhouette appear within the glow._

_Why was the light there?_

_Who was standing in it?_

_One step after another, Autumn began walking towards the silhouette. It felt so familiar, almost as though she'd done this a million times before... maybe she had, but if she did, she couldn't remember. Step by step, she drew closer to the silhouette—and soon it became the outline of a person. After a few more steps, she could tell it was a small girl with long brown hair._

_Autumn didn't know why, but the sight of this girl frightened her: there was a sharp object dangling from her tiny hand... an object that was coated in dark liquid. The fluid was dripping from the tip into a puddle beside her shoes, and beyond the girl's form was a giant mound of some sort: Autumn couldn't make out what it was... but it positively reeked of fresh blood_

_"Who's there?!" Autumn called, looking at the girl's brown hair with large yellow eyes. "Who are you?!"_

_When the distant girl turned around and their gazes met, a pair of glowing blue irises met her golden ones: the person standing in front of her was almost completely identical to her, aside from the frightening light emanating from her eyes. Autumn's doppelganger dropped the object and lifted her hands with shaking muscles, staring at her with an expression of helpless pleading. Shockingly enough, the doppelganger looked stricken with terror and was actually crying, if the tears streaming down her cheeks said anything. The doppelganger's chest began to glow with a brilliant golden light beneath her shirt, fading in and out of existence in an almost rhythmic manner... almost like the beating of a heart.  
_

_She started walking, one step after the other, towards Autumn with shaking muscles: the real version of the girl stood frozen until her doppelganger touched her arm… but when the crying version of her was sucked inside her body without even a sound to mark her vanishing, a vision overtook her mind._

_She saw an abstract axe splitting bronze scales and severing a beautiful glowing heart._

Autumn gasped and bolted upright as the nightmare shattered like glass and reality took hold.

For the longest moment, she could do nothing but tremble with utter terror as her hands sparked with electricity. The only thing she could do was stare at the ground as her mind filled with the odd images. Her muscles eventually relaxed, though, and the surreal terror faded into nothingness as reality made it's presence known. Pulling her hair back, Autumn slowly climbed out from under Draco's wing and glanced at her sleeping companions: she was thirsty and didn't want to wake them up since it was still dark, so she climbed to her feet and stretched her aching limbs before padding off in the direction of the river.

However, the dragon's completely alert voice startled her into stopping.

"Where are you going?" he quipped, looking at her with luminescent yellow eyes. "It's still quite early, you know."

"You must think I'm a sneaky idiot," Autumn sighed, raising a hand rub her eyes as she watched his silhouette rise from the ground and loom closer to where she was standing. "I wasn't trying to run away, just in case you were wondering."

"I don't think you're an idiot, and after last night you should already know that I trust you," the dragon snorted, getting up with a catlike yawn before approaching; he continued walking until he was standing by her side. With a shake of her head, the girl shrugged and began to walk toward the river again; Draco came with her, walking so close that his wing hovered above her head every time he took a step. "Forgive me, though… I truly didn't mean to upset you yesterday evening."

"My life is kind of a touchy subject," Autumn sighed, shrugging. "It's not your fault that you don't know anything about it."

"Hey, I almost forgot! I was given a name by Bowen last night!" he exclaimed, catching her curious glance and giving her another startling dragon grin; she giggled involuntarily once again. "It's not my true one, but I'm fond of it all the same! It's Draco!"

Autumn jolted to a halt and stared out at nothing as her eyes went wide.

"Are you okay?" Draco asked, frowning when he noticed the frightened expression on her face. She blinked as though she'd forgotten he was there and forced an excited grin that didn't necessarily convince him; however, he let it go.

"Draco?" she asked, scratching her head nervously. "Um, so that means you were named after the stars, right?"

"You know of them?" the dragon asked, glancing down at her in surprise. "That would mean that you're most likely from another time, not another world... are you certain you know about the stars you speak of?"

"Yeah," Autumn murmured, cocking her head as she thought about it. "I don't know a lot, but I've studied a little bit."

"Then," Draco stated, narrowing his eyes, "you know that they aren't mere stars."

"Yeah, I know," Autumn sighed, smiling a little as she remembered the movie. "Dragon's Heaven."

"The stars," he began, then paused as if he were unsure. "Do they shine brightly where you come from?"

Autumn frowned and looked up at him, curious as to why he suddenly sounded so solemn.

"Well, when the weather's good, they do," she admitted, turning her attention back to where they were going and smiling to herself as she remembered something. "After the accident, I used to sneak out of my biological sister's apartment so I could stare at those stars for hours. There were times I put Annabelle into a panic because I'd fallen asleep in the fields outside of town, but it was like… I dunno, comforting, I guess. They made me feel protected, like I was being guarded by someone whenever I looked up at them. No matter what was happening in my life, those particular stars made me feel better for some reason."

When the dragon didn't say anything, she cast a wary glance at him and stopped when she realized that he had stopped a good deal back and was staring at her in shock; Autumn frowned fully turned around, worry lacing her fragile features.

"Why are you staring at me like that?" she asked, biting her lip as he continued to look at her; the dragon held her gaze as he slowly began to approach her, moving forward until his head was as close to hers as he dared. No human, not even the Celts, had ever understood the emotion that all dragons felt whenever they looked at their Heaven… but she had described it so perfectly that it had thoroughly disturbed him.

What was it about this girl that set her apart from other human beings?

"Draco, you're really starting to scare me," Autumn whispered, frightened by the intense way he was looking at her: it felt as if he could see right into her soul, the places where her darkest torment lurked. When her yellow eyes began to glow with an inner blue light, however, the dragon took a deep breath and exhaled sharply; a gust of sparkling air lifted Autumn's long hair from her shoulders, and he froze at the sight of the silhouetted wings behind her.

"Life hasn't been kind to you, has it?" he rumbled when she flinched and turned her head away, almost as if she was expecting him to lash out and bite her. He backed away a bit to give her room, inwardly wondering if his first assumptions about Autumn's race were completely correct. _I'll have to be careful, but how does one tell a human that she isn't… human?_

"No, it hasn't," Autumn replied uneasily, fidgeting under his gaze and finally turning to head in the direction they'd been walking before. After a moment, she paused again and glanced over her shoulder to see that the dragon was still keeping pace with her as she walked to the river. "You really don't want to know everything about me… my life is not a pleasant subject."

"Actually, I'd very much like to, but I won't force you," he replied, cocking his head with another one of those cheesy grins that, for some reason, always startled her and made her laugh without warning. She figured it was because he was revealing a lot of razor sharp teeth in a way that was supposed to be friendly, or maybe it was because she found it strange to see a dragon smiling at all: a dragon's grin was bound to look strange. "As for why I want to know…"

"What?" Autumn asked, twisting her lips impatiently when he trailed off.

"Well," Draco murmured, expression becoming serious, "I'm interested to learn how an Angel managed to find me."

"Excuse me?" Autumn asked, blinking three times in rapid succession. "Cripple that and run it by me again. I'm a what?"

"An Angel," he repeated solemnly.

"An Angel?" Autumn scoffed, letting her jaw drop open in dumbfounded amusement. "Okay, look, I know I'm not normal as far as human beings go, but an Angel? You've got to be joking, Draco! I'm nowhere near nice enough to be an Angel!"

"You find solace in the forests and near the water, your powers are uncontrollable… but there are a few moments when they do what you intend," Draco explained, listing off the symptoms she had, in fact, been having over the past few months. "Judging by your age, I'd guess that your senses are becoming a little awry: without knowing why, they sometimes sharpen beyond anything you've thought possible. Not only that, I'm guessing there are moments when you get an unbearable tingling sensation between your shoulder blades: it gets to the point where you want to scratch at it wildly. Am I correct?"

"Why—what—how in the heck did you—?" Autumn squeaked, stammering a few more incoherent babbles before falling silent from the shock; when Draco saw the stunned expression on her face, he smiled and lightly bumped her with his wing.

"Breathe," he chuckled, flashing another scary grin that made her giggle; she would never get used to seeing it.

"I'm shocked that you know what I've been going through," Autumn muttered, looking over her shoulder and trying to see her shoulder blades. "I mean, seriously… how the heck did you know that my back has been itching like crazy lately?"

"My dear, there is much I could shock you with," the dragon chuckled, meeting her gaze warmly. "You and your kind are unique, Autumn Fyre, but it's been well over three hundred years since the last remaining Angels on this continent died out."

"Three hundred years?" Autumn squeaked, staring at the dragon in mortification. "Does that mean you're…?"

"Oh, Heaven's no! I'm not that old," the dragon hooted, throwing his head back in laughter. "The knowledge was passed down to me when I was a hatchling! If you want, I could tell you all I know about your kind and teach you how to control your powers."

"The info about my powers is okay," Autumn admitted, clutching her head in amazement, "but the other stuff is a no-go for the moment. I mean, this conversation is really pushing at my limits of coherency. It's… I mean, it's kind of… uh…"

"Overwhelming?" Draco suggested, grinning widely again.

"Well, yeah, but that scary-looking grin of yours isn't helping me very much!" Autumn whined, reaching up to massage her aching temples when the dragon smiled even wider. "Anyway, thanks for the info… I suppose it explains a lot. Okay, as a random way of changing the subject… why, exactly, are you and Bowen swindling all of the villages around here for their money?"

"Oh, our deal?" Draco offered, glancing down at her and trying to feel reassured that he hadn't done the wrong thing by telling the girl about her previously unknown heritage. "It was an attempt to prolong the inevitable, I suppose. With him being the last dragon slayer, and me being the last dragon… it simply made sense to us at the time. However, it's a rather long story that I don't wish to darken this amusing conversation with, so perhaps when I find the courage to tell it, I'll seek you out."

"I'm not going anywhere, so I'll be here whenever you want to talk to me," Autumn told him, reaching up to shove her bangs out of her eyes as they crossed the field toward the river. "Anyway, how can I use my powers without having them blow up in my face? I mean, things have gotten seriously damaged whenever I tried to control them, so I'm kind of interested now."

"You're always holding back your emotions, correct?" Draco asked, beaming widely when her jaw dropped. "Well, the trick is to let them come forth and mold them to your will. Your abilities are controlled by how much you feel: the more powerful the emotion, the stronger the ability. If you let yourself feel things, you'll be able to master your heart and mind."

"Well, aren't you just the cheesiest little fortune cookie I ever did see," the girl trilled sarcastically. "Anyway, I'm gonna wash up now, so you might wanna take off. You may be a dragon, but you're still a guy—and _all_ males have hormones."

"As you wish, Little One," Draco rumbled, inclining his head and heading back to the camp.

"One more thing?" Autumn called, making him halt and look over his shoulder. "Why do you keep calling me 'Little One'?"

"All dragons call their children that," Draco stated simply. "Why should you be any different? After all, you chose to stand beside me rather than by Bowen, so by the right of Dragon Law, you are now my child to shelter and protect from harm."

When he turned around and left, he didn't notice that Autumn's eyes had filled with startled tears; nor did he realize that a huge lump had formed in her throat, preventing her from doing anything but watch him leave. After the dragon had left, the girl furiously rubbed her eyes and headed down to the river with thoughts of being clean in mind. A light mist had covered the glade where she found the river, and after looking around for a bit she looked found some blueberries growing on a bush. Tenderly picking a few of them off the branch, she popped them into her mouth and knelt by the river.

She cupped her hands and brought the freezing water to her mouth, taking large gulps before splashing her face with it. Once she was somewhat awake, Autumn shed her school clothes and stepped into the refreshing water. Her long brown hair swirled around her bare body in silken tendrils as she moved, the ends just barely dipping into the water that was soon cascading around her thighs.

After taking a deep breath, Autumn squeezed her eyes shut and dove forward, letting the unpleasantly cold submersion wash over her small frame. Instantly coming up for air with a breathy gasp, the small girl shivered before she took the shampoo and conditioner out of her backpack and began to wash her hair.

She hummed the Dragon Heart theme as she washed herself, singing it with all of the skill she had as she thought over her conversation with Draco. Once her body was completely free of dirt, grime, and the blood from the scratches on her knees, Autumn decided to focus on her abilities.

She soon realized that she had a problem, though, since she didn't really know how to let go of her emotions without blowing something up. After several moments of performing weird, arcane, and utterly pointless hand gestures, the small girl sighed and her shoulders slumped. She tried to think back to how she'd managed to use her powers after losing control of her anger, but that's when she realized she was going about this all wrong.

Back then, she'd snapped and purposely let her anger show.

Which meant that she needed to focus on using the energy building inside her instead of smothering it.

With this new method, Autumn finally learned how to control her abilities: letting her instinctive mind take over for the moment, the small girl lifted her hands and pulled a wall of water out of the river nothing but a thought—withdrawing a spray of swirling moisture that she easily used to her advantage. She twisted her arms gracefully above her head as streams of crystalline water swirled around her body in spirals, twisting in shimmering strands as they were sucked into balls of shifting liquid that began to form above her outstretched hands.

The girl froze the balls of water and grabbed them out of the air.

"I… I did it!" Autumn whispered, staring uncomprehendingly at the frozen water balls. "I really did it! Wow!"

She was too stunned by her own achievement to hear the footsteps wading through the water behind her, too excited by her new outlook on life to notice that someone was coming until it was too late. Just as she jumped into the air with a squeal of delight, someone unexpectedly grabbed a fistful of her hair and jerked her backwards.

Autumn's eyes went wide when she felt a rope being slipped around her throat, and she almost fainted when a large hand clamped down over her mouth to muffle her scream. The girl wasn't without her own survival instincts, however, and she instantly bit down on the hand that was covering her mouth. Once her assailant let go, the girl let out a wild scream that could have shattered a room full of glass. Then a cloth was over her mouth and she was forced to struggle against her attacker in silence. She kicked and bit at him, but her attacker was bigger than her. He had no problem hoisting her onto a saddle despite the pain she was causing him.

"My… what a strange... yet _very_ lovely creature," an icy voice purred. "She'll be very interesting to study back at the castle."

"Mmf!" Autumn protested, face going pale as her body was wracked with prickling shivers of disgust: the very sound of that oily tone was almost enough to make her skin break out in hives. When she began to renew her struggle, Autumn realized that her eyesight was blurring and her muscles were becoming weak from some sort of drug that the gag had been coated in. She felt her eyes filling with tears, but by then she had become so weak that she could barely move. In the distance, she saw Bowen looking down at her with an unreadable expression; she struggled to lift her head, to call out for him, but her entire body went limp before she could gesture for help and she quickly lost consciousness.

Bowen watched coldly, long black hair swept back by the breeze: Einon had clearly been out on one of his morning hunts, but he must have seen Autumn and taken an interest in her. The knight shrugged after a moment and brushed off the small girl's kidnapping: he could have helped her if he'd wanted, but it wasn't his problem. If she didn't manage to get away… well, maybe then he would go and rescue her.

It wasn't his problem whether or not she was taken away from them.

After all, she was the dragon's daughter now.

 

 

 

**TXXXXXT**

Autumn woke up in a warm, dimly lit room made of nothing but pure stone… and the first thing her mind registered was the fact that she was in an excruciating amount of pain. After slowly opening her eyes and glancing around, the small teenager found that she was completely nude save for a few bandages.

A second later, she realized she was chained to a wall by a metal collar and her face went white when she found the source of her mind-numbing pain: someone had driven huge metal spikes through a set of wings stretching from her back, pinning the strange appendages against the stone in a macabre way. Her blood had stained the feathers and had trickled down the white brick behind her; even as she watched, a drop of red splattered from a feather and landed on the floor. It took every ounce of strength in her body not to scream her head off at the sight.

"I see that you're awake, Princess," a chilling voice purred from the other side of the room, and Autumn's long brown hair instantly fanned out with prickles of fright. Her head snapped to look at the speaker with huge, dilated eyes and she saw that there was a tall man with pale blonde hair, ashy skin, and crystal blue eyes sitting in an ornately carved chair next to a roaring fireplace. He was wearing a white and bronze coat, white pants, and lots of gold jewelry: he was clearly a noble.

"Who are you? Why did you do this to me?" Autumn whispered, dilated golden eyes fixed on him in a way that made her seem like a rabbit who'd been caught in a particularly nasty trap. The man laughed at her terrified expression before propping his head on his hand and looking at her scantily-clad body. She really didn't like the way he was looking at her.

"You sure are an interesting little thing, that's for sure," the man sneered, giving her a sadistic grin. "I saw your little water show back at the river and witnessed how you changed from woman to winged creature. I am not yet sure if you are a human."

"Leave me alone," Autumn tried to shout, but the words came out as a pitiful squeak; her throat had locked up.

"I'm afraid I can't now that you've captured my interest," the man replied, and Autumn tensed when he slowly stood up and knelt down in front of her. "You seem rather harmless to me: you're very fragile, and you're easily exhausted by things that many others find trivial. After my men drove those metal stakes into the wall, you slept for nearly two days straight."

"W-why did you…?" Autumn couldn't finish the sentence: she'd taken one look at his cold blue eyes and had become paralyzed with dread. She couldn't move properly, her body wouldn't respond to her commands, and she felt like she was going to have a heart attack. When he stretched out a hand and tilted her small chin up, his touch made her shiver with fear: his hands were as cold as the Atlantic ocean, but his gaze was even colder.

It was as if all love had been sucked out of him.

"I am Einon, the King of this land," he boasted, looking straight into Autumn's huge, shimmering eyes, "and you, my dear, are one of the loveliest creatures I have ever seen… even more so when you are covered in your own blood. Red suits you."

"Stop it," Autumn fearfully choked out, body beginning to shake all over when he leaned closer to her and stared straight into her neon yellow eyes. The moment before he pressed his lips against hers, Autumn finally regained her senses and threw herself backwards in an attempt to stay away from him: she instantly collided with the wall and stared at him in raw terror.

"Still a little spirited, aren't we?" the king chuckled, smiling at her with a brutally sadistic expression.

Autumn huddled down and made herself small as she remembered Bowen's words a few nights before her capture: it had been a story about a kind prince named Einon and a dragon who had poisoned his heart with hatred and malice. From what she was seeing right now, this guy had poisoned his own heart… because, honestly, he simply didn't give a damn about who he was hurting. His hand was trying to massage her private areas and she couldn't get away because of her wings: Autumn had paid close attention in history class, and she knew that times in Medieval Europe hadn't been kind on women. If you fought against a king, you could be put to death—but this guy was completely invading her personal bubble.

Autumn felt her heart racing, pounding within her ribcage as her hands began to spark. His lips were only centimeters from hers, but she wasn't going to let a psychotic pervert steal her first kiss or her chastity. Autumn's wings dissolved in a shower of sparkles as she focused her energy into her hands; they instantly began to spark and glow with blue light. The girl shrieked at the King and tried to deck him with a punch, but he noticed at the last second and jumped back with a hysterical laugh.

The very sound made her cringe.

"You may be able to avoid me now but not for long, Little Princess!" he chuckled, and then he left the room, taking his cloak with him. Autumn let out a sigh and slumped down on the cool floor with an exhausted countenance: then she looked through the window above her and found that the moon was bathing her body in a surreal glow. She had to get back to Bowen and Draco, had to tell the knight what she had discovered. The night dragged on slowly for Autumn, for although the pain that had been radiating from her wings was gone, the metal collar was cold and uncomfortable around her neck.

Eventually she heard the door creak, and she began crawling away until the chain had stretched to its limit.

Einon had returned... but this time he had a metal rod in his hands: she didn't like the sadistic look on his face.

"Oh, come now! Surely you want to take a walk, don't you?" the king asked slyly, gliding forward like a wraith and standing over her while he tapped the rod in his hand like a baseball bat. Autumn flinched when he brought the weapon down and slammed it into her right cheek; the force of the blow sent her sprawling on her side, and immediately afterwards he slammed it down on her kneecap. Autumn let out a bloodcurdling shriek that rang up and down the halls of his castle, startling several people who were walking along the corridors.

While the girl was busy getting over the pain, Einon attached a chain to her collar and unhooked her from the wall. Then he proceeded to drag her to her feet and forced her to follow him out the door. Still bleeding and battered, Autumn limped from the room in nothing but her bloodstained bandages. What made the sight horrific was the fact that her height—a fragile four feet and seven inches—didn't even come up to his chest.

She looked like a severely abused child in comparison to the muscular king.

"You know, this would be so much easier on both of us if you were an _indecent_ girl," Einon snickered, taking note of her tight-lipped scowl and blazing eyes. "You wouldn't have to be on this leash like a common dog if you would only do what I wanted. Sadly, though, I'm afraid I might have to break your spirit before I can partake in the pleasure of your flesh."

Autumn gave him a huff, not even giving him the privilege of hearing her speak: she knew her superiority to his, so there was no point in responding. The king knew for a fact that she could easily overtake him if she lost control of herself again, and that's why he was carrying such a deadly weapon: even if he was immortal, getting stabbed by an ice shard, burned by a raging inferno, and zapped by a lightning bolt would still hurt a lot. The king brought her into a large feast hall, leading her to a dais at the head of the room where he sat at the head of the table. He hooked the chain around the arm of his chair and offered her a leg of mutton. Autumn promptly ignored it and stared off into space.

Einon gave her a wicked smile as he spoke to a burly man next to him.

A woman sat on his left, dressed in a white veil on her head and a lovely cream-colored gown. At the moment, she was struggling to peer around Einon's shoulder in an effort to see what everyone was staring at, but the former queen gasped when she caught sight of Autumn's battered form. The small girl chose that moment to look up at everyone with dejected eyes, but when she caught the woman staring at her with a horrified and outraged expression, she smiled a bit and gave a little shrug. The woman paled even further and sat back in her chair, lips pressed so tightly together that Autumn shivered. She really hoped the look in the woman's hazel eyes wasn't being directed at her.

Murderous expressions were much scarier on regal, elderly faces than young sadistic ones.

"Your Majesty, that is quite a magnificent servant you've got there! Where did you buy him?" a man who Autumn believed to be a duke or something suddenly inquired. However, with an expression of baffled shock at the notion that anyone could believe she was a male, the dainty little brunette haughtily decided to speak up for herself.

"I'm a _girl,_ thank you!" she squeaked; the man's eyes widened in disapproval at her behavior.

"I found this beauty somewhere secret, friend, but she _is_ rather lovely," Einon chuckled, giving Autumn's head an affectionate caress before playing with a tendril of her soft brown hair. The small girl's shoulders tensed on reflex to his touch, and she had to do everything in her power not to set his hand on fire by accident: her powers were literally about to explode.

"She doesn't seem to like you very much, your Majesty!" the duke laughed; Einon laughed right along with him.

"Have you ever thought of putting her into the ring, your grace?" another man asked, "Despite her size, I am positive that she would make many a glorious victory against the combatants. And if not, she would at least make a good hobby for some of the barbarian men who are more… erm, how should I put it? Deprived of certain _needs,_ I suppose."

"Say what?" Autumn choked out, huge golden eyes locking on Einon's face; the man's cruel grin expression of delight at the offer sent an icy shiver running through Autumn's entire body, and she suddenly felt the urge to throw up.

"I think that would be a wonderful idea," the king purred, getting to his feet and unhooking her chain. "Let's see what she can do."

Autumn clutched at the ground when he pulled her, refusing to get up and stubbornly sitting on the floor.

Hearing Einon's frustrated commands to move didn't sway her, and she held onto the stubbornness until he decided to use force: the front of his foot connected with her side, and she let out an involuntary shriek as she was thrown to the ground. When he gripped her arm and slapped her silly three times in a row, Autumn tried to hit him back but only ended up being thrown into Aislinn's chair. The girl used her long brown hair as a curtain to hide the fact that she was crying, for all of the guests had started howling with laughter the moment she'd collapsed.

However, the former monarch had flinched when she'd landed and was now gazing at the girl with sympathetic eyes: the woman was the only one who'd noticed the tears dripping onto her armrests.

"Just for now, do as he says," she whispered, tilting the small girl's face up so their eyes could meet. "I will help you later."

Autumn stared at those concerned green eyes for a long moment before she reluctantly nodded: the tiny girl got up despite the massive bruise that was already forming on her side and walked over to the middle of the room, waiting for something to happen as she straightened her chest bandages. Eventually, one of the nobles brought out a burly-looking man with rippling muscles, long hair, a tangled beard, and a large tattoo on his hairy chest.

Autumn twitched a little upon seeing the size of his arms and chest, but she quickly closed her eyes and shakily steeled her mind.

Einon was already taking the leash off, so the fight was undoubtedly about to begin.

The large man, obviously full of rage, charged at her with a roar the second he was set loose: Autumn tensed and waited until he was close, then whirled aside like a dancer as her heart jumped; the man, going too quickly to stop himself, crashed into a stone wall and rolled to his feet again. He shook his head clear and glanced around until he spotted her shaking form before he charged again; Autumn waited until he was close and whirled to the side.

The giant wasn't fooled a second time.

He swerved at the last second and clamped his hand around her frail upper arm, but his fingers were much too thick to get a proper hold on her slender body: and barely she managed to slip out of his grasp. Autumn flexibly twisted around his arms when he lunged at her the third time, and with a fierce kick to his backside the barbarian was sent sprawling on the ground.

"Leave me alone!" she squealed, but the man was apparently too blind with rage to understand what she was saying; while he was on the ground, he scissor-kicked his legs and swept Autumn's feet out from underneath her. The tiny girl hit the ground with a startled yelp, but when she saw Einon laughing in his seat and realized that the others were all cheering for her opponent to rape her, she felt her powers building up inside her. The girl's eyes flared with light and rippled to a fluorescent blue as she took Draco's advice and simply let go.

Body sparking with electricity, the angel was engulfed in a blinding azure light.

"Now you've pissed me off," Autumn hissed, flinging her arms out as her wings appeared in an explosion of fire.

The teen was oblivious to the exclamations of shock and amazement as she lifted her palm and focused a wave of energy straight into her fingers: her long brown hair slowly began to whirl with the power she was generating, and she let out an earsplitting shriek of rage as a lightning bolt exploded from her fingertips; the man instantly went flying across the room, straight into a long table of food. Not hesitating for a second, she leapt into the air with a graceful arch of her back and used her wings to glide at her opponent: slamming her feet into his chest so he couldn't get up, Autumn straddled him and bared her teeth, watching how his round green eyes dilated with fear.

A red haze clouded her vision as she pinned the man's huge arms with her unbelievably small ones, but onlookers let out a cheer when she bit down on his shoulder and sank her inch-long canines into his flesh. The man let out a scream when her powerful jaws locked down on him, but she was now so strong that her grip was unbreakable.

Autumn could taste blood as she punctured the man's body repeatedly with her fangs, getting closer and closer to the life-giving artery until she could practically hear the pulsing red fluid flowing throughout his body. The blood was warm, fueling her hatred as the human struggled feebly against her godlike power. She was just about to kill him when, quite unexpectedly, the sound of a terrified voice echoed throughout her mind.

Autumn froze like a deer in the headlights upon hearing it.

_"Master, help me! Help me, please! Make it stop!"_ a male voice cried, bawling and crying in her mind. " _It hurts!"_

When she realized it was coming from the man who was currently pinned beneath her body, Autumn's pupils contracted into tiny pinpricks and she let out a strangled sound of horror: it was then that she regained her sanity. She instantly jerked away from his neck and clamped both of her tiny hands against her bloody mouth, shaking all over as the glowing light in her eyes abruptly winked out: the horror of what she'd just been doing to another human being had sent her into shock.

The taste of copper in her mouth made her feel numb with horror.

She hadn't realized that the man underneath her was mute: he'd been unable to do anything but scream his entire life, but inside his mind he was crying like a lost child and begging for his master to help him.

It was sickening.

Autumn glanced at the man the barbarian was calling for and realized that he was the burly man sitting next to Einon... however, the creep was cheering for her now and making no move to help his crying servant. Autumn bristled with power once again, and her eyes began to glow from blue to bright red as an unholy hatred seeped into her heart: although she could have easily snuffed out this man's life, she wasn't a murderer of any sort… nor was she a tool to be used at the cost of another's pain. Suffering was the one feeling she could understand better than anybody else alive: she wasn't going to be used as a nobleman's toy for some sick sport to inflict it on someone else.

Whirling around and planting her arms on the man's wrists again, she looked at his face and watched how his eyes dilated a second time. However, instead of biting him again, she closed her eyes and did the complete opposite: bringing her soft lips down to his injuries, she ignored how he flinched and kissed the bleeding wounds she had inflicted upon him. After a moment of this, he stopped struggling and his eyes glazed over as she began to heal him with her powers: blue light flared up from the spots her lips touched, and when Autumn finally pulled away from him, there was nothing but blood remaining on his body. No puncture wounds, no bruises, no damage whatsoever.

He had been completely healed.

_"Stay calm, okay?"_ Autumn whispered inside the man's mind, wincing when he twitched and stared at her. _"I'm sorry that you had to go through such a terrifying experience, but I promise you'll be okay. I finally understand that you can't speak... and I'm really sorry for hurting you. I'm not your enemy, though, so I'm begging you… please don't attack me anymore. Your master is not a caring man, and I am going to punish him for mistreating the two of us like this."_

She watched as the man's jaw tightened, but after several moments of staring at her pleading golden eyes, his expression relaxed and he gave her a reluctant nod. After receiving the confirmation that he wouldn't attack her again, Autumn closed her yellow eyes and hunched her shoulders for a long moment. She listened to the confused whispers of the watching noblemen, gaining all of the reasons she needed to get angry and steeling her resolve.

She needed to gather her reasoning before the rage could have a chance to falter.

Then, eyes snapping open with a flare of blinding red light, Autumn leapt off the barbarian's chest and used her enormous wings to fly to the top of the vaulted ceiling. She flapped there for several moments as her glowing eyes scanned the enormous ballroom, scouting out the best route to put her plan in action.

Flipping backwards and diving straight at the table where Einon was sitting, the winged girl charged straight at them until she saw fear on people's faces; then she folded her wings and flipped her body upright, landing feet-first on the table and sinking into a flexible crouch as her long brown hair cascaded around her shoulders. Before the servant's owner could react to her unexpected landing, Autumn used her mind to create a violent spray of water and whipped an ice-blade against his throat.

He froze like a statue, completely taken aback by her actions.

"So, your name is Brock D'Ancantalo?" Autumn asked, speaking in the sweetest voice she could muster. "Well, Mister Brock, let me ask you a teensy little question before you make the biggest mistake of your life: how fast would you draw your sword if I told you I could cut your body into a hundred thousand pieces within ten seconds? Because I might try it if you move, and my hand can move as fast as I want it to: make no mistake about that."

"D-don't hurt me," the burly man stammered, then turned to look at his servant and roared, "Auron, you lazy brute, get over here and help me! Help me! Hurry up and kill her you dumb, mental ox! Get off the ground and save your master!"

"Oh, your servant is neither dumb nor mental," Autumn giggled, pressing the blade just a little bit harder. "He's actually quite intelligent... but you would already know this if you had a heart, right? Brock D'Ancantano, I will be keeping tabs on you and your servants once I get out of here... and mark my words, I _will_ get out: you can't keep someone like me in chains for very long. Once I get away, I will be watching you: if I discover than any of your servants have been treated like this in the past, I will come for your head. I promise you that with everything that lives inside my soul."

During her little speech, Autumn didn't see or hear Einon grasp his sword by the hilt; she didn't even remember him bringing it down on the back of her head and knocking her out. Her wings had apparently dissolved when she'd lost consciousness, but the servant who had been fighting her watched as the guards dragged her out of the dining hall.

 

 

 

**TXXXXXT**

"Ow, what happened?" Autumn whined, lifting her small hand to feel the sore lump on her head as she swam back into consciousness. She opened her golden eyes to find that she was in an iron cage, but now she was actually wearing a simple cotton gown instead of just bandages. Autumn rubbed her eyes and sat up, frowning as her headache slowly began to fade.

"You're a dangerous creature," a woman murmured; Autumn groggily looked around until she spotted Aislinn sitting in front of her cage. The woman was wearing her dress and had her long, red-gold hair spilling over her shoulders. "However, you can see the difference between right and wrong, and I respect that since there are those with power who cannot see it."

"I don't know why I lost control like that," Autumn whispered, drawing her skinny knees up to her chin. "I just wanted to make up for all the pain I'd caused by accident, so I healed the man I was supposed to fight and turned on his master."

"Don't apologize to me," the woman chuckled, shaking her head with a smile, "I know what you are and who you know."

"What do you mean?!" Autumn instantly squeaked, shrill voice giving her away despite the fact that she was trying to act completely innocent. The adorable attempt made Aislinn grin, and Autumn's cheeks turned so red that she ended up hiding her face in her cotton-clad knees. "I-I don't know what you're talking about! I don't know anyone around here, no one at all!"

"You are friends with a the last dragon," the woman laughed quietly, and Autumn flinched. However, the small girl stiffened in disbelief when Aislinn produced a key and unlocked the cage. After that, the woman turned and unlocked a safe in the corner, pulling out her backpack and clothes. "I am on your side, though: I know you don't want to be here, and I can't blame you. On my word, I wont let him hurt you any longer. What is your name?"

"Me?" Autumn asked, cocking her head to the side as she crawled from the cage and dusted herself off. "Well, my name is Autumn, but everyone back home called me Freak because of my strange abilities and odd looks. Anyway, what's your name?"

The former queen smiled at the girl's naive friendliness.

"I am Aislinn," the woman giggled. "I am the former ruler of this land."

"Well, Miss Aislinn, I owe you my life," Autumn sighed, starting to grin in relief; however, she jerked to a halt when realization struck her like a bolt of lighting: she had just remembered the one part of the Dragon Heart movie that she had absolutely hated with a passion. When Einon had murdered his mother while Draco was helpless to do anything about it, the scream Autumn had heard in the movie had always made the girl feel utterly sick inside.

She'd always wished that the producers could have cut that scene out since it was the only real horrifying thing in the entire fantasy movie.

The teenager instantly glanced up at the queen with bright yellow eyes, realizing that she might be able to do something to change that particular outcome… if she was serious about it. Aislinn frowned in puzzlement when Autumn slowly took the woman's hand, but she instantly realized that the girl was doing something important when she saw the serious look on her pretty face.

"What are you doing?" the woman asked, blinking.

"Aislinn, please don't hit me or anything, okay?" Autumn grimly instructed, turning the woman's hand over so her palm was facing upward. "This might hurt _really_ bad, but it _will_ save your life in the future... so, whatever you do, don't scream."

"I-I beg you p-pardon?" Aislinn stammered, eyes widening when Autumn stuck her tongue out and cut it using a frozen water blade; the girl instantly flinched and tilted her head back, closing her watering eyes. When she opened her eyes again and opened her mouth, however, the woman could see the girl's fangs extending.

It took everything in the former queen's power not to scream for help when Autumn's jaws clamped down on her arm and the girl let out a hiss of pain: the woman's eyes became huge for several moments, but then she blinked in shock. Aislinn was actually fairly dumbfounded when she realized that the small girl's teeth had just barely broken the skin on her arm: her actions were, in fact, more like a kiss than a bite.

The woman jumped when felt a surge of electricity shooting up her arm, and the feeling engulfed her entire body for several moments of tingling bliss; then the sensation disappeared and Autumn pulled away with a small groan, clutching her head with both hands. Aislinn stared at her blankly, watching how she shakily healed her tongue and rubbed her yellow eyes with a disgusted expression on her face.

The small brunette suddenly looked very, very tired.

"I think you'll be safe now," Autumn murmured absently, looking down at the ground. "Sorry about the sudden scare, but I don't want anything bad to happen to you. Honestly, I know more than you think I do… so you should be safe from harm now."

"Well, that was very odd, and I have no idea what you're talking about, but I'll follow your advice and stay sharp," the woman stated calmly, drawing the small girl into her arms and hugging her the way a mother would a daughter. Autumn's eyes widened and, for a moment, she froze at the scent of the queen's perfume.

Trembling slightly, Autumn's arms slowly lifted and returned the hug.

Then, after slinging her backpack across her shoulders, Autumn followed the woman through a secret passage in the floor: it was a moving stone that grated across a hidden staircase. The sound made the teenager cover her ears with a whine, but Aislinn patted her shoulder comfortingly and led the way down the staircase. They made their way through a maze of tunnels and waterways until Aislinn showed her a ladder with a grate at the top.

"This should lead you out of the castle and right under the bridge," the woman instructed, putting her pleasantly weathered hands on Autumn's shoulders. "Please be careful on your travels, child, for there are many more dangers out there."

"Thank you for everything, Aislinn!" Autumn called, flashing the woman an optimistic grin before she darted up the ladder and out into the world above. "I promise that I'll make it up to you someday!"

"Be careful," Aislinn sighed, knowing that she was walking on a double edged razor with no shoes.


	5. Chapter 5

   **Chapter Four: Freedom or Confinement?**  
  


Dawn had just come and Autumn was getting tired: she had traveled all the way back to their old campsite, but she was disappointed because her companions weren't there anymore. Feeling desperate, the tiny girl smoothed out her school blazer and started trotting around the campsite in a struggle to find some horse tracks.

She eventually found them, although they were a day and a half old... but still, she began to follow them.

Draco, not surprisingly, was going to be _much_ harder to track since he flew everywhere and only landed in certain areas, so she tracked Bowen's horse, Nera. She followed them for so long that her already-tired limbs were aching with exhaustion. The girl eventually came across another campsite that they'd made the night before: they were headed for the nearest town, so she'd probably have to rest since the afternoon sunlight was too hot.

Autumn sat down in a patch of shade, summoning her wings and using them to keep herself cool: since she didn't have anything better to do and was beyond tired, the girl dozed off before noon. After waking to a nice orange glow over the fields, Autumn continued her search: she tracked and tracked until her throat was dry and her body was limp with hunger. In the end, she finally came to a small hill and could see a town below her. Feeling relieved, Autumn straightened her school clothes and hefted her pack before stumbling down the hill. If she was right, Bowen would be staying at the nearest inn so he could put the usual plan into action in the morning.

Following the familiar hoof-prints, the girl found Bowen's horse calmly munching hay in a small stable. She gave Nera a pat in greeting, who looked up and whinnied in amusement before continuing her supper. Autumn was too exhausted to change out of her school clothes, but then again she was also oblivious to the stares people were giving her; in other words, it didn't matter to her either way.

Autumn trotted out back and called Bowen's name, knowing she wouldn't be able to stand upright much longer.

When she called for Bowen again, the man opened his window and stuck his head out. The second she saw his face, Autumn grinned and her body relaxed of its own accord; the moment she let go of the anxiety that had kept her alert, her yellow eyes rolled back and she collapsed to the ground in a heap. A few minutes passed as she lay there, already half asleep, but she soon felt Bowen's arms lifting her up. She remained clutched against his chest until they got to his room, but when he shut the door and set her on the bed, Autumn weakly turned her head and smiled.

"How did you get away?" he asked, sitting on the small bed as he put his glasses on.

"Let's just say I made a new friend," she replied with a weary grin, launching into her story of the past few days she'd spent in Einon's castle. As she spoke, Bowen's face became more and more astonished, but when she told him that Einon's heart hadn't been poisoned by a dragon and that he had poisoned it himself, he wouldn't hear another word of her ordeal.

"Be quiet," he stated with a bitter expression, holding up a hand to silence her. "I do not want to hear anymore of this."

"You really can't accept anything bad about him can you?" Autumn snapped in a sudden fit of anger. "That man nearly busted my kneecap because I wouldn't let him _rape_ me, Bowen, so how the hell can you sit there and avoid the subject?!"

Bowen looked appalled by her words.

"I don't know how they treat women where you're from," he commented, "but apparently those men have no discipline."

"Men are just as idiotic where I come from!" Autumn retorted angrily, bristling at the insult. "I can absolutely assure you that it wouldn't matter whether you were born here or there, you'd be the exactly the same as you are right now: selfish!"

"Shut your mouth!" Bowen snarled, leaping to his feet. "Any more insolence and I _will_ punish you!"

"Go ahead!" Autumn shrieked. "It's not like I haven't been hit before! Come on, jerk, hit me! I can take a punch or two!"

"I haven't even seen you fight," Bowen sneered, narrowing his. "How am I supposed to know if you can hold your own?"

"I was thrown into a fight against a man three times my size in Einon's castle," Autumn hissed out, getting to her feet and advancing on him until he unwillingly fell against the wall with wide brown eyes. "I have been beaten, sexually harassed, and hurt in more ways than you could ever understand during these last few days, and that's really all you have to say? Even after you stood there doing nothing while they hauled me off? I saw you standing on that hill, Bowen: you _let_ him take me away!"

"I didn't think he would hurt you and I wanted you gone, so in my mind it worked out," Bowen muttered, looking away as he angrily told the truth; Autumn went white as a familiar sense of betrayal surged through her heart, nearly breaking it into pieces all over again: tears instantly began to brim her eyes as she clenched her jaw with unadulterated fury.

"Fine… since you were so honest, let me tell you the truth," Autumn said softly, using her hair to hide her eyes. "I know what's going to happen to you because, in reality, I came here from the future. A few minutes ago I was trying to stop you from getting hurt, but now I understand that it's really not my problem whether your heart gets broken like mine."

"W-what?!" Bowen asked, slowly tightening his jaw as an unexplainable dread clenched his stomach; he was even more alarmed when Autumn turned to look at him with the sweetest smile in the world, only there were tears streaming down her face and her eyes looked dead: there was so much sorrow and pain swirling in those golden orbs that his stomach twisted.

"Hey, Bowen?" she asked sweetly, sniffing and looking at him kindly as she fought back tears. "When Einon shows his true colors and crushes you, I'm just going to sit on the sidelines and watch, okay? After all, you did the same thing to me."

"E-excuse me?!" Bowen squawked, but before he could say more the girl whirled around and leapt out the window.

The man bolted forward and tried to grab her ankle, but her wings exploded in midair and she took off flying: she flew off into the forest like a bird, trying to get away from his apologetic shouts and phony friendship. As the girl zipped above the trees, the girl finally broke down and covered her eyes to hide the fact that she was crying like a baby; even after she'd escaped into the woods and had gotten away from him, the tears continued to stream from her eyes. Somehow, she had never realized just how alone she was until that moment.

A loud flapping suddenly boomed in her ears and she looked up, tears flinging into the air: when she saw Draco swooping in from above, the small girl dove into a large field and let her wings dissolve. As she fell toward the ground, Autumn twisted like a cat and landed lightly before flawlessly sprinting off into the night. Draco flew over her head and tried to pick her up with his claws as she ran, but the girl swerved and dodged his talons. The dragon growled in frustration when she darted into the cover of a thicket.

Once she was covered, Autumn slowed and hid in a deep inlet covered by a tick overlay of brambles. Draco flew over the thicket, but the trees and brambles were too dense for him to land without crushing her. She heard him curse as he flew away, so she huddled there and curled into a ball before bursting into tears.

Feeling angry that she'd let herself trust someone so easily, Autumn pressed herself into the ground in the hopes of vanishing: curling up so she wouldn't get too cold, she drew her slender arms into her blazer and continued crying. After several minutes of sobbing like a little girl, a breeze reached her hiding place and swept through her long brown hair, cooling her tear-stained face in an unpleasant way.

She covered her mouth and tried to muffle her crying when familiar footsteps echoed nearby.

"Autumn, come on! I didn't mean it," Bowen called with a false tone of sincerity; the girl clamped both hands over her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut in the hopes of muffling her sobs, but a few managed to get through. "Draco, do you really think she's still over there? I hope you're not trying to make me look dumb by talking to a pile of brambles!"

The dragon chuckled and said nothing, which meant that he had probably nodded; the girl heard the footsteps getting closer, so she slowly slid her arms through her sleeves and began to back up. Sniffling, she continued backing up until she was pressed against a large stone with nowhere to go. Knowing she was trapped, the small girl buried her face in her skirt-clad knees and began to cry again.

She didn't want to be anywhere near Bowen at the moment, but he wouldn't leave her alone.

"Come now, don't be like that," the knight soothed, pulling apart the brambles and clearing a small path.

She instinctively pressed against the stone, looking up at him through her bangs: he was approaching her cautiously, but one hand was holding a long strip of leather even though the other was held out defensively. Autumn's head snapped up and she stared at the strip of leather in confusion, but her face drained of color when she saw that he was holding a leash. When her golden eyes darted to Bowen's false smile, she froze like a marble statue: this man didn't care about her at all… he was only using her because she had supernatural abilities. When he took another step toward her and lifted his hand in a gentle manner, the girl paled even further and abruptly scrabbled away from him, movements shaky and unsteady.

He was just like Einon... she couldn't even trust him enough to let him touch her.

"Calm down, kid: I didn't mean to make you angry," he stated soothingly; Autumn was too blind with fright to care about his false statements. When he was only a meter away, the girl's hands exploded with light and she slashed at him with a humming blade of fire, warning him to stay back without speaking; he flinched and stepped back, obviously wary of her blatant display of hostility. Autumn suddenly heard another sound: someone or something was sneaking up behind her.

She instantly crouched on the ground, crawling forward even as she warned Bowen back with her weapons.

When she thought the hunter behind her was about to strike, Autumn let her powers dissolve and leapt at the knight with outstretched arms; he dodged and let out a shout when she started sprinting into the forest again. However, the girl let out a squeak when something unexpectedly slammed into her from behind, throwing her onto the ground; her breath was knocked out when something unbearably heavy pinned her to the ground. Stunned and afraid, she struggled against it until she heard a familiar sigh. When Bowen came up from behind, she turned her face away with a scowl and fought to keep from crying: she hated him with a passion.

"I thought she was going to kill me," the man croaked, and Draco muttered something she couldn't hear; a large claw pressed into her head, gently exposing her neck and allowing him to place the collar on her. After that, the knight tied her hands together so she couldn't attack him.

No matter how much she struggled, Draco didn't let Autumn get up for any reason: he held her there for nearly an hour, watching as her struggling died down and she went limp. Once the dragon removed his paw, the two of them noticed that she had fallen asleep, but Bowen wasn't going to take any chances. He whistled until his horse, Nera, trotted forward and then he got Draco to help him put Autumn in the saddle.

The girl's long hair brushed against his face as he did so, sliding against his skin like cold liquid satin.

"She's fast and spirited for such a young girl, but she's also very vulnerable, Bowen," the dragon stated, eyeing Autumn's disheveled clothes and puffy eyes; Bowen merely snorted, ill-tempered from chasing the girl around. "Hey, I mean it! From the little I've actually managed to learn about her, I've come to the conclusion that she's never been truly cared about. She's also been missing for the past few days… did she tell you where she's been? What did you say to her when she came back?"

"We merely had a quarrel, but vulnerable or not, let's just hope she's still on our side when she wakes up," Bowen muttered, lowering his head as he headed for the village. After watching them go, Draco let out a sigh of his own and went into the forest once again: he'd neglected to mention that Autumn had only stopped struggling because she'd cried herself to sleep.

 

  **TXXXXXT**

Autumn let out a catlike mew when she began to wake up, nuzzling the soft surface she was lying on.

After a moment of nuzzling, she ran a hand through her satin-like hair but paused as the collar around her neck jingled loudly. Slowly opening her sparkling eyes, she glanced down and realized that she still had the leash and bonds on, restricting her movement. Autumn frowned and sleepily brought her tied hands up to the strap, trying to get it off with sleep-clouded movements: she clawed at it and jerked at the chain, but the bond had been tied too tightly. After a few moments of this, Autumn gave up and lay back down with a dejected sigh.

She was chained up like a slave, which wasn't something she'd have expected Bowen to do.

She couldn't understand why the man had resorted to something like this just to keep her by his side.

It was around that time when Autumn noticed that something big and warm was lying against her back, so the small girl rolled over and saw that Bowen was beside her, fast asleep with his back resting against hers. Turning beet red with embarrassment and shock, Autumn let out a shriek and kicked him awake; after a moment of hysterical smacking and flailing, the man abruptly sat up and she leapt away from the blanket with a startled yip. He looked at her with groggy amber eyes for a moment, but then his expression cleared up.

Autumn glared and yanked on the leash he'd wrapped around his wrist.

"Would you be so kind as to remove these stupid things?" she snapped. "I can't feel my hands at all right now."

"Not until you promise that you won't attack me," the knight retorted, shaking his head.

"Fine, I won't attack you! Just get it all off!" Autumn wailed, hastily sitting down and waiting as he got up; she waited patiently while he untied her wrists and removed the leash, but after she was free the girl debated slapping him in the face for being such a jerk. She pondered doing it for a second, but then settled on giving him an annoyed expression; after that she got up and walked over to the wall, somehow managing to convince herself not to maul Bowen for treating her like an animal.

"Does this mean you're not going to leave our group?" he asked, eyeing her suspiciously.

"I'll stay with Draco, but I haven't forgiven you," Autumn snapped, leaning against the wall and staring at him with wary yellow eyes; Bowen sighed at the small girl's response, then stalked forward and thrust a package into her arms. Autumn blinked at it in confusion when he abruptly left the room, but then she simply shrugged and opened it.

For a moment she had to remember how to breathe: a pair of sandals and a beautiful red gown made of satin had been placed inside of the package. The embroidered design was incredible, and there was actual gold trim lining the fabric: she felt a bit amazed that he had gotten her something so pretty. Autumn took one look at her dirty high-school uniform and sighed: she wanted to change into the outfit, but only after washing up. After handing Autumn her apology-gift, Bowen waited for the young brunette down in the pub with a loaf of cinnamon bread he'd bought for her. No matter how much he'd wanted to deny it, the man had felt guilty when she'd shied away from him after being released from her bonds; it wasn't the first time a woman had looked at him with distrust, but for some strange reason he just couldn't help but feel that something about Autumn's case was different. He couldn't deny that her reaction this morning had caused regret to prick at his heart…

Something about the way her eyes had looked had been very... saddening to him.

Several gasps and hushed murmurs suddenly arose around the tavern... and after almost two minutes of listening to it, Bowen glanced up to find the source of the hushed amazement. For a moment, all he could do was simply stare at the young woman who had just walked downstairs; he was amazed that he hadn't been told that he was sharing an inn with royalty... but he was even more confused since a princess would rarely ever stay in a tavern unless some type of misfortune had befallen her. Then he happened to notice her vibrant yellow eyes.

His jaw immediately dropped open in unholy shock.

It was Autumn.

She looked extremely uncomfortable with all the stares she was receiving, but she somehow still managed to walk over to him with an emotionless expression on her gorgeous face. However, after taking in her stunning appearance, the man felt ashamed of himself: he'd never really noticed how beautiful she really was until that moment. Autumn had always worn clothes that seemed outlandish to him, and her sense of style was so alien that he'd never really paid attention to her looks.

Her long, reddish-brown bangs had once again been tied behind her head in a braided fashion, but the look seemed somehow... different, even though nothing about it had really changed: the crimson dress she was wearing had accented her pearly skin and molten eyes almost perfectly.

The changes that had been caused by a simple outfit were unimaginably vast.

"Is there something on my face?" Autumn asked, scowling at him when he continued to stare in open-mouthed shock.

"Not at all," Bowen chuckled, mussing up her hair and grinning when she squealed in dismay.

"Don't!" Autumn shouted, smacking his hand away. "I just spent twenty minutes styling my hair! Don't mess it up!"

"Fine, fine, I promise I'll leave your hair alone," the knight sighed, smirking when she huffed triumphantly; after a large breakfast with several fits laughter, due to Autumn continuously stealing things from the knight's plate, the two of them left the inn and headed into the town. However, after stopping by several shops to get some traveling rations, Autumn paused as they were crossing a street and looked toward the main square.

Several people were gathered there, and there seemed to be some sort of commotion going on.

Arms full with her basket of bread and apples, Autumn absently left Bowen's side and curiously made her way over to the throng in an effort to see what was happening. Making her way around several different people, the small girl managed to get to the center of the crowd, but after a moment she paused in recognition: a young woman with red hair was standing not even five feet away, and she was speaking angrily to a crowd of people who had gathered around her. She looked to be about Bowen's age, if not a little younger, but she was still extremely pretty.

However, after realizing that Autumn was no longer trailing behind him, the knight strode back into the crowd and put a hand on her shoulder; then he noticed the odd way she was staring at the redhead and paused. When people began laughing and started throwing things at the woman, Autumn's basket would have dropped to the ground if Bowen hadn't caught it.

"We all must fight back!" the woman shouted angrily, covering her face when someone threw a tomato at her; Autumn guessed she was talking about the king's horrible rule, and she couldn't help but agree after being tortured by him.

"We did fight back, and once was enough!" an older man with an eye-patch challenged her. "We'll not try it again!"

"Oh, sure!" the redhead spat venomously. "You'd rather cringe under Einon's boot like a dog!"

"At least a cringing dog would be a live one!" the man growled, picking up a thick-skinned watermelon and hurling it at her.

Within the span of a second, Autumn leapt forward and whirled around, flinging her arm out as a spray of water engulfed her tiny hand. Her crimson dress and brown hair fanned beautifully as she created a frozen blade and rapidly sliced the watermelon in half; everyone went dead quiet as the girl caught both halves with ease—even the redhead, who was standing directly behind her. With a soft sigh of relief, Autumn let her glittering ice blade dissolve into moisture and turned to look at a group of three children who were standing in front of a middle-aged woman.

The entire family looked at her with wary eyes when she walked up to them, but the fear rapidly turned into delight when she handed them the watermelon halves. After that, Autumn righted herself and angrily turned around.

"If you idiots have enough supplies to throw food at a woman who's only telling the truth, you have enough supplies to feed people who are obviously starving," Autumn snapped loudly, smoothing her wrinkled dress with a vexed expression. "Don't waste things on someone who's doing the right thing! If you have no qualms about attacking a young woman, why won't you attack the _man_ making your families _suffer?_ That seems like an action fit for cowards, not men with wives and children!"

"Stay out of this or you'll get the same treatment," the man snarled.

"Oh, I'd love to see you even try to throw something at me," Autumn laughed sweetly. "However, I should warn you right now that you probably won't have your hand much longer if you do. It's your choice to try, really, but you've been warned."

"Is that a threat?" the man challenged, puffing up his chest like a typical testosterone-filled idiot.

"It's a god damn promise," Autumn retorted calmly, yellow eyes blazing. "Listen here, all of you! Nothing in this world will ever change for the better if you don't stand up for yourselves! Yeah, it's true that you and your men could possibly lose your lives in a battle for your freedom, but if you hide from the problem at hand, all you'll ever accomplish is your own suffering."

"This girl is absolutely right! We speak the truth about this kingdom!" the redhead called, stepping forward and putting a protective hand on Autumn's shoulder. "Einon is the cause of all our problems, so we must fix him! We have to _fight!"_

"You lie!" a young man shouted, throwing another watermelon at the two of them. Autumn whipped her hand up and created another frozen blade, but she halted when a whirl of black blocked her vision. The girl jumped when she realized that Bowen was suddenly in front of her, and she cocked an eyebrow when he caught the fruit and turned around to stare at them.

"Truth?" Bowen asked in a reprimanding voice, leisurely breaking the watermelon in half. "That word is rarely inspiring, my ladies, and it never leads to rebellions… it _will_ stretch necks, though, if there are any underneath those little mud-pies."

_Oh, this is just perfect… he's flirting with her,_ Autumn thought, rolling her eyes: she watched as the woman took the fruit and stared at it for a moment; then she shoved it into Bowen's face and smeared the red juice all over it. Autumn covered her mouth to cover up her fit of laughter, but the sound of her muffled giggles didn't escape his attention. The knight glared at Autumn, but she couldn't tell if he was blushing or scowling since his face was covered in red melon.

"Hey, Bowen, your brain just called me," Autumn happily teased, covering up more of her laughter when the man glared at her even harder. "You should go find it again since the hormones kicked it clean out of the castle!"

Before the man could respond, the girl suddenly noticed a dark shape flying towards the town and immediately stopped laughing. When Bowen gave her a curt nod and straightened his glasses, Autumn started screaming and pointed her finger above the roof-line with the most terrified expression she could muster; when the rest of the villagers looked at her in alarm, Bowen followed her gaze before raising his arm and pointing at the sky.

"There's a dragon over there," the knight called cheerfully, and the whole village was sent into an uproar.

The redhead startled Autumn when she planted a hand on her shoulder.

However, when the girl glanced up at her face, she saw something unexpected: the woman was worried about her. The red-haired woman abruptly wrapped her arms around Autumn's torso and spun her around when Draco swooped down and soared directly above them; both women dropped to the ground as his tail swung by and smacked into a building that stood directly behind where they'd been standing, scattering several villagers.

The woman let go of her and got up when Draco had safely passed them by, but Autumn glanced at the mountainside and saw that the dragon had landed on a nearby cliff; she watched with large golden eyes as he tilted his head back and roared, suddenly feeling a sense of sickening Déjà vu that had never before assaulted her during one of their escapades. As the gathered villagers calmed and began to freak out about what to do, should the dragon attack, Bowen wiped the last of the juice off his face and walked out into the middle of the square.

Automatically getting up, Autumn dusted off her dress and followed him.

"It seems that you people are in need of a dragon slayer!" the knight called. "Who is the lord responsible for this village?"

"Brock D'Ancanto!" the man with the eye patch replied, poking his head out of a doorway. "The man lives in a big house about six miles away from here, but he'll only blame the damage on all of us and pluck our pockets to pay for it!"

Autumn skidded to a halt at the sound of the name.

"I won't pluck them as deeply, so it is your choice to take my offer or leave him where he is!" Bowen laughed, motioning to the dragon—who roared again and sent out a stream of fire from both nostrils. As he ceased the jet of fire, the woman with red hair came forward and pointed an accusing finger at Bowen.

"It's bad enough that a man like you can grovel to Einon and still consider yourself to be righteous!" the redhead shouted angrily, folding her arms and glaring at him with shining jade green eyes. "Why should we have to be bullied by some sort of broken-down knight on top of the suffering we've already been going through?"

"That's right, you don't need me! Settle it yourself!" Bowen snorted, looking at a group of cute girls. "Anyway, there are definitely other ways of paying for things, so maybe you'll part with one of your precious daughters instead of some gold?"

"Bowen!" Autumn gasped, glaring at the knight when One-eye yelled in protest and ran to the frightened women, shielding them unsuccessfully from the knight's keen gaze. Bowen grinned and slowly turned around as he surveyed every woman, but then he grabbed Autumn's arm and tugged her to his side, holding her in place with a mischievous expression on his face. "I've got my woman, I guess... but then again, dragons are also partial to maiden sacrifices, I hear."

Autumn's golden eyes went wide when he glanced at the woman with red hair and grinned.

Only a moment later, she was suddenly swarmed by villagers who were shouting out instructions to tie her up. The poor woman was bound to an old wagon with a stake through the center, and when she started screaming at them to let her go, they didn't yield to her pleading. Autumn felt rooted with shock as the people in front of her literally turned on someone they'd known for a long time without thinking twice. When the tiny girl tried to get away from Bowen to help her, the knight kept her in place: she looked at his face and blinked when she saw his grin.

"Y-you jerk!" Autumn spluttered, looking utterly outraged. "You wanted them to do that to her, didn't you?"

"I just wanted to see what they would do," Bowen snickered, grinning down at the teenager with a satisfied expression. "It's not like Draco will actually eat her."

Autumn bristled in anger and stomped on his boot-clad foot, making him mutter an _ouch_ as a few villagers came up to him to discuss his payment. The girl used the distraction to break free and run ahead, since Draco had finally agreed to take the young woman: Autumn hiked up her skirts and ran through the forest, leaping over the streams, rocks, and logs in her path until she heard shouting and the flapping of the dragon overhead.

As she continued to run, she started to recognize the scenery and realized that she was coming up to the waterfall where she had first met Draco. The girl eventually guessed that she was just above it since there was a river flowing slowly downhill. After a few more moments of running, Autumn came out into the sunlight and realized that she had been correct due to the huge cliff she was standing on top of.

She surveyed her surroundings before closing her eyes and concentrating on herself. After a moment, she slowly spread her arms and tilted forward, diving off the cliff as a spray of blue light exploded from her back. Draco was already there, lying on a sunny rock while the young woman attempted to fix her hair.

At the sight of Autumn, who was descending towards them from the sky with a set of enormous feathered wings, she let out a harsh cry and grabbed a knife that was at her side. Landing gently and smoothing out her red dress, Autumn ignored the woman's demeanor and hiked up her skirts so she could make her way down the rocks. A large gap was still resting between her and the woman, but she leapt it easily and deftly landed on the large boulder. Draco gave his best scary-grin when he noticed the woman's fearful expression.

"Calm down, Madam! Autumn's not hostile unless you make her mad or call her short, which a friend of ours has a bad habit of doing constantly," the dragon chuckled as the tiny brunette looked at the redhead with curious golden eyes. "Autumn, this young woman tells me that her name is Kara."

"I know that much because of my Futuristic knowledge, remember?" the brunette sighed, walking forward and flopping on the grass. "She also tried to protect me when you nearly smacked us with your tail. Setting that aside, I have a huge question now: do you think Bowen would agree to make a detour so I can visit the Lord of the villages around here?"

"Why do you ask?" the dragon inquired, giving her a wary expression.

"I have personal business with a certain Mister Brock that needs to be taken care of," Autumn muttered, closing her eyes and running her hands through her long brown hair. She did this for several moments, but soon her feelings began to build up and after only a minute of silence, spontaneous notes began to float out of her mouth. Autumn sang for nearly thirty minutes, but when she finally finished her song and opened her eyes, she saw that both Kara and Draco were staring at her in shock.

"You also have a beautiful voice," Kara stated in disbelief. "Erm... the dragon sang for me earlier, too."

"Um, thanks?" Autumn squeaked, blushing bright red at the compliment. "Hey, Draco? I'm gonna go change my clothes since I don't want to ruin my new dress. We're probably going to start traveling again when Bowen gets back, and running around in my school clothes is much easier to do than it is while wearing this. Plus, my uniform should be dry by now."

"Make sure you fold up that dress before putting it into your backpack," Draco admonished, snorting out a puff of smoke when the girl got up and brushed her beautiful clothes out. "Oh, and put the sandals away neatly so your new clothes aren't wrinkled."

"You don't seem like a dragon at all, much less a _male!"_ Kara abruptly exclaimed, looking baffled by the parental advice the creature was giving the brunette. "You're acting more like an overprotective mother than a man-eating dragon!"

"Well, how many dragons do you know?" Draco inquired, resting his head against the boulder and watching how she shied away from him. "I mean, putting aside all common myths, how do you even know whether or not we actually _eat_ men?"

"Well, you're the first dragon I've met, so I… don't," the woman murmured, blushing when Draco laughed.

"You should never listen to a minstrel's fancies," Draco explained with a smirk. "A dragon wouldn't hurt a soul unless they tried to hurt him first, and I'm just as protective of Autumn as any father would be of his daughter. That girl is special in more ways than you can imagine, Kara, but I get the feeling that she hasn't been loved until I came along."

"What do you mean?" Kara asked, frowning a little. "She seems perfectly happy to me... all things aside."

"She hides her pain whenever she's awake, but there are times when it slips through," Draco muttered, snorting out a puff of smoke and looking at the sky. "I get the feeling that caring about her would be the best thing to do, so I'm doing it."

"You've got to be lying to me," Kara snapped, scowling in disgust. "I've always been told that dragons were vile creatures who constantly destroyed our villages, stole our livestock, and ate people like me unless we all gave you what you wanted."

"Like I said, a dragon wouldn't hurt a soul unless they tried to hurt him first," Draco replied, regarding her with half-lidded golden eyes. After a moment the dragon flicked his attention to look at Autumn, who had already changed into her school clothes and was now walking toward them with a satisfied expression on her face.

"Really?" Kara asked, narrowing her eyes. "Then can you explain why were you were destroying _my_ village?"

"Oh," Draco muttered, not knowing how to answer for a moment, "the village, uh—"

"Yes, the village…" Bowen's voice suddenly snapped; everyone turned to look at the man as he rode along the bank of the river. Autumn paused for a moment and stared at him when he glared directly at her before shifting his anger to Draco: apparently he wasn't in a good mood, but Kara was on her feet in a second.

"Leave them alone! Pick on someone your own size! Go on guys, I can hold him!" Kara shouted, holding the knife out in Bowen's direction; the man simply ignored her and walked right up to Draco with a frustrated expression.

"Where have you two been?!" he shouted angrily.

"You're looking at it," Autumn lazily retorted, resting her back against the rock beside Kara.

"I am truly sorry, Bowen, but, uh…" Draco sighed, giving the man a sheepish grin. "I have been quite... _distracted."_

"Meet Kara," Autumn called; when the redhead jumped down in front of Bowen, the man scowled at her.

"You should have just eaten her!" the knight grumbled, walking over to the river and washing his hands.

"Oh, don't get angry, Bowen," Draco sighed, clearly becoming annoyed.

"Why not?" the man demanded, raising his arms with an incredulous expression on his bespectacled face. "You left me high and dry back there without any way of knowing you were alright, and I thought Autumn had been kidnapped by someone when she vanished like that! I was worried sick about the two of you, so I have very damned right to get angry!"

"Worried?" the dragon questioned, looking utterly surprised.

"About us?" Autumn added, blinking in amazement.

"Yes! About you!" Bowen snapped, splashing his face with water before drying himself off. "I had the locker all set up and half the village was out there with me when I realized that Autumn had disappeared and something wasn't right!"

The brunette heard something thundering in the distance and turned her head to look at the open stretch hills with a frown. Draco must have heard it, too, because he darted inside the waterfall with a speed that shocked Kara senseless.

"Be careful! Someone's coming!" Draco whispered from the cave behind the falls.

Autumn glanced up when she saw a group of horsemen galloping toward them, but one particular man riding a white stallion caught her attention almost instantly. When Autumn recognized him, her yellow eyes flared with light and she immediately flung her hands out: a wild spray of water exploded from the falls and swirled around her body, forming a set of dual pillars on her wrists and creating spikes on her heels. A second later, her glowing eyes flared brighter and a surge of energy froze the liquid to her body. Kara flinched at the display of god-like power before jumping down from the rock. Autumn crouched on top of the stone and glared at the rider on the white horse with shining eyes.

She knew what was going to happen since she had seen this in the movie.

"Well, well, well! It can't be, but it is!" Einon called mockingly as he pulled his horse up to the opposite bank of the river, looking to his before turning to look back at Bowen and the others. "Is my old mentor still giving his carving lessons?"

"Get off your horse and I'll give you one!" Bowen retorted loudly, bristling when the king smiled.

"You should never have broke from me!" Einon called across the river, insulting the knight with a nonchalant tone.

"It was _you_ who broke from _me!"_ Bowen roared, but Einon dismissed this and continued talking.

"At any rate, I must thank you for returning the poor little servant girl I lost," the king chuckled, motioning at Autumn with a sly expression. The girl instantly stood up and balled her fists, face distorting with rage; her long brown hair fanned out like a cotton ball as electricity began to crackle around her body, sparking brightly in the air.

"Go crawl into a little hole, suck your thumb, and die!" Autumn shrieked, repeatedly stomping her foot. "Putrid barf bag!"

"I think she wants to stay lost!" Bowen laughed, grinning when Autumn unsuccessfully tried to pat her hair back down.

"It's not her decision, I'm afraid," Einon mocked. "I own her."

"Screw you! I'm not your plaything, you conceited lech!" Autumn screeched, small shoulders shaking with rage; when the wind circulating around her body spiraled into a vortex, her hair lifted toward the sky and she took a step back as she tried to calm herself down. If she wasn't careful, her powers would build too much and she would lose control the way she had at the warehouse: a picture of Maki's smiling face as blood slid through her lips nearly shattered her heart.

She couldn't lose anyone else after her watching her sister die in her arms: it would break her.

"I'm ready for my lesson now, knight!" Einon laughed, getting off his horse and walking to the edge of the river.

After a moment he drew his sword and pointed it at Bowen with a sneer; the knight's face instantly changed to a mask of cold determination and he moved forward. He didn't draw his blade, but he still walked into the water. Autumn watched with shaken eyes as the two circled each other, both seeming to be waiting for the right time make a move. The small girl leapt from the rock and summoned her wings, gaining some attention from Einon and his men. This gave Bowen his chance so he whipped out his sword, and the young king only brought his sword up in time to block the attack. As they battled, Autumn chose to make her approach on the men.

She was angry, but above all, curious as to who was with him since the coincidence of Einon showing up didn't seem natural.

Kara was too busy watching the king and the knight battle each other in the river to help.

Autumn went farther down the river so the horsemen wouldn't see her and flew over the gap. Once she landed, the girl doubled back and silently crept through the bushes, sneaking behind the unsuspecting men who were obviously too preoccupied with watching the fight. Brock had gotten off his horse and was standing by, looking ready to jump in help the king if he needed to; beside him was the slave she'd fought.

_'Auron,'_ Autumn whispered silently in surprise, making him jerk and look around. _'I know you probably recognize the sound of my voice... after all, I'm the only person who ever figured out that you can't speak. Look, I need you to listen to me and answer my questions honestly: how many slaves does your master have?'_

_'Master only has me and a young boy that he captured on the way here,'_ the man replied, looking shaken by her voice appearing out of nowhere. ' _The others died from the beatings we all received yesterday evening, so he is currently looking for new slaves to buy. Regardless, the boy standing beside me is surprisingly... similar to you in battle.'_

_'That works in my favor… now I have a reason to set you all free,'_ Autumn whispered inside of his mind, tensing as she prepared to cause a huge distraction. _'Don't do anything rash, because... in _about three seconds, I'm going to save all three of you._ '_

_'What do you mean?'_ the large man asked, face going pale as he frantically started looking for her. ' _Where are you?'_

_'You'll see,'_ Autumn replied, leaping out of the bushes with a shriek and sending shards of ice at the horses' heels. The animals all whinnied, some rearing on their hind legs and causing an uproar in the midst of the men. Auron looked startled for a second, but then he recognized Autumn and gaped in amazement. The girl, who had only one thing on her mind, darted forward and dodged the men's attacks with a speed that shocked the people watching: lifting her frozen blade as she ran towards Brock, she sliced the bonds around Auron's giant wrists and rolled out of the way as a spear was thrown at her.

Then she turned to look at the boy that the giant had mentioned and sliced his bonds as well.

"Run away!" Autumn shrieked, dodging another spear and ducking under a sword that someone swung at her. She hesitated when Auron took off running, but that little distraction allowed one of the men to lasso Autumn with a thick rope; the girl struggled against the bond and hacked at it with her frozen blade, but the more she struggled, the more it tightened.

Soon, more ropes were thrown around her arms and torso, completely restricting her movement.

Once she understood that she'd been caught, Autumn glared into the man's face and realized that he was the lord of the first village she had ever visited. She only remembered him because he had buckteeth and looked like a nerdy idiot with weasel-like tendencies. The man grinned coyly at her, then yanked on the rope around her neck until she was jerked forward and forced to fall onto the ground.

Autumn felt the cord tightening on her throat, restricting her breathing and making her see red and black she glared at him through her hair, the man brought out a knife and leisurely started drawing it against her legs; Autumn let out a shriek as blood trickled from the wounds, seeping into her white stockings and blinding her with pain. The boy she'd set free charged at the man from behind, but he unexpectedly whirled around and stabbed the kid in the stomach before slicing him across the throat: the teenager collapsed, glowing eyes fading.

"Little wench," the man snickered, voice high and condescending as he turned on Autumn and plunged his dagger into her side. She let out a shriek that rang across the hills with horrifying power, but the man cut her off by using the rope to throw her into a large boulder. An explosion of wind and frozen ice shards whipped around Autumn's body the second she hit the ground, slicing off the ropes and allowing her to crawl to her feet. The girl's vision blurred as she staggered forward, pain sprouting from her chest: gripping the dagger, she held her breath and ripped it out of her body, gasping once it was gone.

The girl clutched her side as blood began to stain her blazer, dripping red down her small white hand.

The deadly wind around her made it impossible for anybody to come even remotely close, so Einon's men simply watched as the small brunette staggered toward the fallen boy. After only seven steps, her knees buckled and she collapsed onto her stomach. Still, she struggled to crawl toward the dying young man and just managed to touch him: the moment her fingers made contact with his body, her powers began to react and the injuries were instantly healed.

On top of that, his body abruptly vanished with a crackling sound and a black flash of shadow: he had disappeared.

She didn't know where she had sent him, but anywhere other than here was a good thing.

As the world began to turn red and black with a sickening rushing noise, Autumn saw Einon walking away from Bowen with a nasty grin: the knight was holding a hand to his right shoulder and small trickles of blood were dripping down his hand. Einon turned around and acted as though he was leaving, but he was reaching for his sword; Autumn saw the danger and tried to warn her companion, but speech had escaped her. Before she gave into the black that was veiling her eyes, Autumn saw Einon throwing the sword, but then there was a sudden loud splash and Draco leapt in front of the knight.

Autumn heard a deafening roar and terrified screams before everything faded to black.


	6. Chapter 6

** Chapter Five: Moonlit Sorrow **   


_Autumn winced as the glare of the mirror blinded her sensitive eyes. Blinking groggily, she glanced ahead of her—only to find that there were several familiar people in the vehicle. A woman with thigh-length blonde hair was sitting in the driver's seat and two girls were sitting in the seats in front of her; next to her was a little girl with glossy blonde hair and blue eyes. Autumn sighed when she remembered what she was doing, planting her head in her hands as she stared out the window. She and her family were all on their way to a special event in California, and the five of them were sitting in their rented family-sized SUV as they drove toward the theme park that had just opened in their late father's name. When Autumn glanced at the mirror, however, she straightened up as something in her mind buzzed: instead of seeing her six-year-old face in the mirror, she saw the face of a strange-looking older girl who looked… odd._

_The girl in the mirror looked almost as though she could be her big sister._

_Why, though?_

_Where was her real, younger face?_

_"This is great, isn't it?" her mother suddenly asked, cutting off her train of thought and making her thoughts go fuzzy when she tried to figure out why something felt wrong about the girl in the mirror. "We're going to make your last week of summer vacation a blast! Maybe we can even get some special makeup to cover up Sarah's shiny new pimple!"_

_"Excuse me? What pimple?!" the black-haired girl demanded, frantically digging in her bag for something. Autumn shook her head and looked out the window again. After Annabelle, the girl wearing glasses, reassured her older sister that their mother had been joking about the 'non-existent pustule of malignant ooze' that was currently 'festering' on the tip of her nose, the two begin talking about their crazy friends' families._

_Autumn tuned out her older sisters' ditzy chattering; her little sister, Arielle, stared at all of them blankly._

_"So, Kylie's aunt sent this note to her parents telling them that she'd be away in Bali next month," Sarah was in the middle of saying, "and she said that she was doing an intensive Pilates-yoga retreat with Rodney Yee, but that's—"_

_"Who's Rodney Yee?" Anna chattily interrupted. "And what kind of person would name their kid Rodney?"_

_"He's one of those stud-muffin yoga gurus," Sarah giggled. "I think he trained Cindy Crawford. Anyway, I know what the truth is because I heard her father telling her mom that she isn't going to Bali at all—she's having a knee lift and a toe reduction, and she's establishing her alibi early so no one will suspect anything!"_

_"Toe reduction?" Anna exclaimed, wrinkling her nose in disgust. "Ew, that's disgusting!"_

_"I know, right?" Sarah agreed, nodding gravely despite the laughter on her face. "She's got these humongous clompers, and nothing fits her feet right except for Easy Spirit pumps. She wants to wear money shoes."_

_"You know—like Manillas and Choo Choo's," Arielle added, trying to be apart of the 'big-girl' talk._

_"Manolos and Jimmy Choos, Darling," their mother corrected, giving her youngest daughter an amused giggle._

_"Right! So, as I was saying, she can't because her feet are too big," Sarah continued in a sinister voice. "After the toe shortening and a little heel shave, she's hoping to be able to cram 'em into stilettos."_

_"Er…" Erika murmured, seemingly at a loss for words. "That's very… um… interesting?"_

_"Erika, have you gone absolutely nuts or something?" Autumn snorted in disgust, poking the tip of her tongue out with a revolted shudder. "That's the most disturbing thing I've ever heard, and I've heard a lot of things living in this family."_

_"Oh, that's nothing compared to the other stuff, little sis!" Sarah laughed evilly. "Her aunt's been a complete nut case ever since she moved to Florida. For instance, she has a therapist for her houseplants."_

_"Are you serious? The woman actually has therapist for her houseplants?" their mother scoffed, gaping at both of her daughters in shock; Anna and Sarah burst into hysterical laughter upon seeing the woman's bewildered expression, and Autumn snickered in reluctant amusement. "Maybe we should avoid letting you associate with this girl from now on…"_

_"Sarah, I thought your other friend having a drunken medium for a mother was crazy," Autumn hesitantly giggled, "but this girl's got an aunt who just outclassed her in the loony department."_

_"I know, right?" Sarah laughed. "Kylie's aunt is a serious quack. Ghosts can't compare to hysterical insanity."_

_"Hey, you said she moved to Florida, didn't you?" Arielle suddenly asked. "Mommy, isn't there a group of people like us who used to live there? Daddy said that you and him met each other in Florida, so you should know if there are, right?"_

_Everyone in the car fell silent for several moments and the nature of the mood changed almost instantly. Autumn picked up on the shift in emotion and stared at her family in confusion, wondering why everyone had either looked out the windows or stared into space with somber expressions._

_It was the first time since her father had died that they'd looked like this._

_"Yes, I met your father in Florida," Fiona murmured, voice nothing but a somber whisper now, "but the people you're talking about are no longer alive, Aria. You must remember to never talk to anyone about your powers, no one except me or your big sisters. Humans fear what they don't understand, and they destroy whatever it is they fear… which is us. They cannot understand our kind because we aren't like them, and that makes them dangerous."_

_"Mama, why can't we just get along with them?" Autumn quipped, feeling thoroughly confused. "I mean, we look just like human beings and we're never, ever mean to them, so can't they accept us even if we're not a part of their kind? Is it because we have wings sometimes?"_

_"No," her mother whispered, face twisting up in pain. "They will never accept us, honey, not if they know we exist."_

_"The humans killed Dad after he revealed his powers," Sarah snapped, finally glaring at the little girl. "He visited a hospital and saw an old man dying in a wheelchair: the human was suffering from fits of extreme pain and the doctors were ignoring him under the pretense that he was going to die, so Papa couldn't resist taking away the hurt he was experiencing. He broke away from the other humans he was studying with so he could walk over to that man, and with a single touch he allowed him walk again. Not only that, he cured every last bit of the cancer that was killing him."_

_"Sarah, you're lying!" Autumn shrieked defiantly. "Humans didn't kill Daddy for being nice!"_

_"She's telling the truth, sweetheart," Fiona croaked, silencing her daughter into shock. "After your father healed that man, he was revered as an angel from heaven... but the praising didn't last for very long. When he got angry at his theater recital for a movie shoot a few days later, he caused several light bulbs to explode due to our affinity with lightning… and the humans beat him to death for an unrelated accident only a week after that play, right in front of Sarah and myself. We saw it happen to him."_

_For several moments there was nothing but silence._

_Autumn was so horrified that she couldn't do anything except believe it wasn't true._

_Arielle tugged on her arm after several minutes, capturing her attention._

_"Big Sister, Mama and Sarah are just joking, right?" Aria whispered, eyes wide and afraid. "Humans aren't really that mean to us, are they? They won't hurt us like that if they know about us, right? They didn't really kill Daddy! Did they?"_

_"I…" the six-year-old choked out, shaking her head, "I don't know."_

_"They can't have!" Arielle _angrily_ shouted, shaking her arm. "I told my best friend in class about us, and he's a hu—"_

_The sound of shattering glass interrupted her sister's voice, and suddenly the windshield was nothing but red._

_Autumn jumped in alarm when her mother let out a shout; the woman jerked the steering wheel sharply to the right, causing the van to jolt violently. The brunette's eyes went wide as vertigo clutched her stomach and she clamped her hands down onto both sides of the seat, holding her breath as her mother lost control of the van._

_Autumn's sisters clutched each other and let out hysterical shrieks; Arielle grabbed her slender arm, letting out a scream when the car spun around. The little girl chanced a glance outside the windows and saw that the van was swerving first toward the trees, then toward the guard-rail that blocked off a two-hundred-foot drop into a stony death-valley chasm. Her eyes slowly began to widen in terror._

_"Kids, hang on tight! I can't control it!" their mother wailed, gripping the steering wheel when Aria let out another terrified screech and clutched Autumn's arm even tighter. "Shit! Shit, shit! _The mechanism holding the wheel is jammed!"_  
_

_Letting out a whimper, the golden-eyed girl closed her eyes and braced herself just before the front end of her mother's SUV smashed into a pine tree. Autumn had prepared herself to deal with a crash, but what she hadn't been prepared for was the force of the impact: it jerked her neck forward so suddenly that she nearly cracked her head against seat in front of her. The little girl let out a hysterical shriek when she realized that it wasn't over yet: the momentum of the vehicle combined with its lopsided angle had caused the van to roll._

_All five females in the van screamed at the top of their lungs as it jolted violently, shrieking in terror as the car flipped over and over again—snapping their bodies around like rag dolls; the windshield and windows quickly shattered inward, sending square chunks of safety glass flying into their faces._

_Autumn clamped onto the seat with both hands and screamed hysterically as they flipped, golden eyes round and muscles completely rigid with terror. She couldn't close her eyes against such a horrifying experience; it was too awful and sudden. All she could do was watch the fate of her world unfold as the vehicle continued to roll downhill—smashing into trees with enough force to snap a grown man's neck._

_Sarah's door was suddenly ripped off when the van smashed into another tree, but her eyes widened when she saw that the belt holding her oldest sister in place had snapped off during the impact. When she saw what was happening, Autumn flailed to grab a hold of her big sister's arm despite the fact that the van continued to jerk and roll violently. She just managed to grab her wrist when they smashed into another tree and the nineteen-year-old flew out of the car with a cry._

_"SARAAAAHHH!" Autumn shrieked, bursting into tears before her breath was snatched away again._

_She felt sick when her sister let out a horrifying screech, flinching when it was suddenly cut off as the van rolled on top of her. Arielle began to shriek when Autumn lost her grip on the seat and hit her head on the metal above, but then the van slammed into another pine and a tree branch the size of a sapling impaled the metal of the SUV. Arielle's screaming abruptly cut off as the vehicle flipped away in the opposite direction._

_Fiona, Anna, and Autumn were the only ones still screaming when the car finally rolled off of a precipice—but then they fell silent so abruptly that it left listening ears ringing: the van was held suspended upside down in the air as their screams cut off, hovering weightlessly in dead silence before the front end of the car smashed into solid stone, flipped upside down, and slammed them all into the ground headfirst. The jolt of the crash snapped Autumn's left arm and caused the belt holding her in place to slam her body against the seat._

_She was helpless to do anything since her right arm was pinned against the branch sticking through the windshield._

_On top of that, her left arm was broken in half and she was being crushed by the seatbelt._

_"Mommy…" Autumn wheezed, scrunching her face in pain as the blood began rushing to her head. "Are you okay?"_

_"I've been skewered by a metal pipe and I think I have a rifle bullet in my chest, but other than that I'm just peachy," the woman replied almost inaudibly. "What about you, sweetheart? Are you okay?"_

_"I-I'm fine, I think," Anna shakily replied, holding her bleeding forehead as she started to cry._

_"Mommy—help!" Autumn squeaked, vainly struggling to free herself. " _I can't breathe!_ "  
_

_"What do you mean?" she asked in alarm._

_"The seatbelt is crushing me!" Autumn wailed, facing turning red as tears started trickling from her eyes. The glistening drops rolled up and into her long brown hair as she hung helplessly upside down. "It hurts… it hurts… it hurts… Mommy..."_

_"Shit! The seatbelt has her pinned!" Anna whispered harshly; Autumn's mother instantly began crawling through the debris and stretched out a trembling hand before collapsing. Her shirt was stained with blood that spilled from the pipe sticking through her chest, and even more blood was pouring from the hole just below her collarbone._

_"Help me, Mommy," Autumn whimpered, squeezing her eyes shut as darkness began to sweep over her mind._

_Suddenly, a click filled the air and her head slammed into hard metal. Autumn took a choking, gasping breath of hair as life rushed back into her body, coughing and wheezing as her mother touched her arm. Suddenly remembering that Arielle was still in the car, Autumn glanced at her younger sister but froze: the four-year-old had been impaled by the branch that had shattered the windshield, and she was barely breathing._

_"Arielle!" Autumn squeaked, crawling through the wreckage and touching her little sister's arm._

_"Big Sister…?" she asked weakly, not opening her eyes._

_"Aria! It's me! It's Autumn, see?!" she cried weakly, feeling terrified when she took his hand with her uninjured one._

_"Autumn," Arielle whimpered, opening his glazed golden eyes so she could look at her pleadingly. "Tell Daddy that I'm sorry I can't ride the roller coaster with him at his new theme park."_

_"You're definitely going to ride it, Aria! You're going to be just fine, okay?" Autumn reassured, clutching her arm while her mother struggled to find something. The small girl glanced at the blonde woman when she pulled out her cell phone and dialed three buttons, but judging by the horrified look on her face, something was wrong with it._

_"Don't lie… it's naughty, 'member?" Aria chided, capturing her attention again. "Promise you'll tell him?"_

_"I… I… yes, I promise," Autumn whispered, finally giving in, "but that doesn't mean you can die! You can't!"  
_

_"I love you, Big S…" Arielle suddenly trailed off, hand slowly relaxing in hers._

_"Aria?" Autumn squeaked, voice going insanely high as she shook her shoulder. "Arielle, wake up! This isn't funny!"_

_Autumn shook her baby sister's shoulder again, but stopped when the child's head lolled; face going white, the little girl slowly let go of her little sister's arm and slumped against her upturned seat, staring at her relaxed face with a numb feeling inside her chest. Even at the age of six... she had known.  
_

_Had instinctively recognized the touch of death._

_Yet, at the same time... none of it felt real._

_"Arielle, hold on! Don't die!" her mother panted frantically, crawling past Autumn and shaking the girl's arm even as more blood trickled from her own wound. Anna covered her mouth and stared at their little sister's body with tears streaming from her wide teal eyes, shocked by the fact that this was really happening to them._

_"Mommy, she's dead," Autumn whispered blankly, staring off into space. "Arielle... she..."  
_

_"No, no, no!" her mother wailed, struggling to rip the sapling out of the little girl's chest before hugging her body. "You can't have my daughters this time! God, don't take them from me! Don't take my babies like you took my husband, please!"_

_"Mommy…" Autumn whispered, face contorting as anguish welled inside her. "Don't cry..."  
_

_"This is insane," Anna whispered, face pale and eyes wide with disbelief. "This is just… insane! How could it have happened and passed so quickly?! We were all laughing a minute ago! How is this even possible?! How?!"_

_"No more," Autumn whimpered, lips trembling as she began to cry. Feeling sick, the little girl squeezed her eyes shut and buried her face in her hands; she felt even worse when her mother's sobs joined in with Erika's gentle weeping. Autumn cried because it was real, and she didn't want it to be: she had just lost two of her sisters forever. Soon the sound of her mother's tears faded and she, too, slipped away from the waking world._

_"Mama?!" Anna shrieked, sniffling in alarm when she slumped over. "Mama, hang on! Don't leave us all alone!"_

_"Take care of Autumn… you are the woman of the house, Annabelle, so I expect you to keep her safe," she wheezed, gripping her sixteen-year-old daughter's hand tightly as she met the girl's startled gaze. After a moment, her hand went limp and Autumn felt her heart crack: this had to be a nightmare, it just had to be._

_It wasn't real, it was all a bad dream._

_When Anna eventually pulled Autumn out of the van, she slung the little girl onto her back with jerky movements and headed into the woods: several hours passed as she carried her sister, but eventually they collapsed beside a churning river. Autumn clung to her only sibling and once again started to cry, trembling violently as the older girl pulled her close and rocked her back and forth; after about three minutes of crying in each others' arms, Anna's muscles tensed and a sparkling light emanated from her back. The sensation of something soft and feathery enfolded Autumn a minute later, and she glanced up to see a wall of white feathers._

_However, there was the sound of a branch snapping and a multitude of clicks filled the air: Autumn and Annabelle looked up to see a group of men emerging from the trees behind them, carrying weapons and looking at them with them was the surprisingly young face of a boy who looked to be around the same age as Aria._

_He was currently jumping up and down and pointing at them._

_"See, Daddy?" the little boy exclaimed, pulling on the arm of the man beside him. "I told you monsters were real!"_

 

**TXXXXXT**

A dull throb broke Autumn from her nightmare, and she felt something gentle and cold moving against her side. She followed the repetitive movements over her skin with her mind, but she couldn't understand what was happening. She wanted to open her eyes, but they seemed to be glued shut and she couldn't make them work. Autumn could hear voices speaking somewhere, but they were incoherent and undefined since her hearing was still nullified from her immobile state of healing.

"I just don't understand how she survived," a woman's voice murmured. "That blade pierced her lung, and deep."

"The wound is actually healing so fast you can see it moving," a man's voice stated grimly.

"Angels have some pretty incredible abilities, so I'm not surprised," another, much deeper voice sighed.

"Healing is my greatest advantage," Autumn mumbled, revealing her secret without thinking; the speakers jumped back when she slowly opened her eyes and blinked the grogginess away. Focusing her mind as she stared at the star-filled sky, Autumn wordlessly engulfed her body with her innate powers and healed her wounded body. After a few moments the glow died away and she cautiously sat up, slowly running a hand over the spot where she'd been stabbed.

"H-how in the… what did you…" Bowen spluttered, apparently at a loss for words. "How are you—?"

"It's just like I said," Autumn interrupted, giving him a steely look. "Injuries and immortality are my greatest advantages over other living creatures, and they always have been for my kind. I can be stabbed repeatedly and I won't die… unless…"

"Unless what?" Kara asked, blinking in amazement.

"Unless the weapon injuring me was engraved with a demonic symbol," Autumn murmured quietly, hanging her head in shame as she revealed her true nature. "Look, you guys, I'm not a normal human girl. I may look like a human and I may act like a human, but I'm definitely not a human. For starters, even though I'm only fifteen years old, my aging process won't go past the age of twenty-one: I'll never die of old age, I have a vast amount of control over the world around me, and the biggest difference between our races is that I have wings and I'll never die unless I'm injured by something with demonic power."

"Well," Bowen sighed, rolling his eyes, "let's make sure you don't g—"

"If you want everyone in the vicinity to hear my weakness, then I suggest you keep speaking!" Autumn hissed, leaping to her feet and glaring at him with a venomous expression. When the knight turned red and abruptly lowered his gaze, Autumn blinked in confusion and looked down at herself. What she saw didn't exactly make sense to her groggy mind. For a second, she stared with uncomprehending eyes, but then she made the connection and let out a scream that forced everyone to cover their ears: clutching her arms over her breasts and falling to her knees in an effort to cover herself, Autumn frantically began to shriek incoherent insults at Bowen. If you hadn't guessed by that point, she was stark raving naked.

"Hey, keep it quiet!" the man complained, covering his ears. "You're gonna blow out my eardrums!"

"Pervert! Pervert! Pervert!" Autumn shrieked angrily, huddling into a ball so nobody could see her body. "Pervert!"

"You little twerp," Bowen snapped, obviously offended by her insults. "You're half my age and so unbelievably small that I'm not even interested in you like that! Who cares if you're naked in front of me? It's not like I'm paying any attention!"

"Well, you _should_ be able to look right at me, then!" Autumn retorted defiantly, standing up and brazenly planting her hands on her hips; the man's eyes went wide and he turned away with a startled hitch in his breath; she tapped her foot expectantly.

"You need to learn some morals!" Bowen gasped, removing his glasses and covering his eyes.

"See, what'd I tell you?!" Autumn shrieked, clamping her arms over her body and falling to her knees. "You can't even look at me straight when I'm standing like this, _pervert,_ so don't even try saying there's nothing wrong with it!"

"How about a little embarrassment with your anger, you prepubescent brat?" Bowen shouted, muscles still unbelievably rigid from the shock of seeing a teenage girl standing stark naked in front of him. "Show some common morals already!"

"You creepy pedophile!" Autumn shrieked. "How dare you call me prepubescent?!"

"Who are you calling a pedophile, you exhibitionist?!" Bowen shouted, frustration building up to the point where he wanted to blow his top. Kara and Draco watched the two of them bicker back and forth for several minutes, but then the redhead decided to intervene; she found their relationship amusing, but there were more important things to worry about.

"Hey, I know you two are having fun over there, but we really need to talk about what we should do with our prisoner," Kara laughed, handing Autumn her bra and underwear along with the crimson dress she'd worn in the village. "A large man came here earlier and refused to leave our campsite, but he wouldn't tell us anything when we asked him what he was doing. Bowen even threatened to cut his tongue out if he didn't say where he had come from, but we still got no explanation from him. Anyway, we tied him up and put him where he couldn't hear what we were saying, but he offered no resistance and simply let us do it. Because of that, we don't really know what to do: he's not acting like a normal enemy."

"Auron is here?" Autumn asked, brightening up almost instantly; turning her attention to Bowen, she used her clothes as a shield and kicked her foot at him until he staggered back a few steps. "Come on! Get away so I can get dressed already!"

"Fine, fine!" Bowen sighed, obediently moving to stand behind a tree.

After Autumn was fully clothed and decent, she forced Kara into leading her to their prisoner's hiding place. The second she saw the large man's confused yet patient expression, Autumn broke into a relieved grin and darted forward with an elated laugh. Creating a blade made of ice, the small girl hacked at his bonds until they broke and forcefully pulled him to his feet, large yellow eyes shining with glee.

"I can't believe you actually made it!" Autumn cried, jumping up and down with the biggest grin of her life. After a moment of doing this, however, she paused and frowned slightly before glancing up at him in confusion. "Still, out of all the places you could have gone now that you're free, why on earth would you come here?"

 _'Because I vowed to protect my new Mistress after she set me free,'_ Auron silently replied.

"Ohhhh boy!" Autumn choked, stumbling backward into Kara from the shock. "You think I'm your mistress?"

"Wait a second," Kara stammered, staring down at Autumn in surprise. "He's not saying anything, but you're replying as though he's speaking to you. How do you know what he wants to say if he doesn't say it aloud?"

"I'll explain what telepathy is a little later on," Autumn whispered, looking up at the woman with wide eyes. "Right now, I think I need to deal with something a little more important. This guy just said something that really bothers me."

"Whatever you say," Kara muttered, rolling her eyes.

 _'I wish to serve you, for you are the first person to view me as something more than an animal,'_ Auron stated, falling to one knee and lowering his head in respect. Autumn had to admit that the effect would have seemed less honest if he had been wearing something like medieval armor. For some reason, the fact that he was wearing nothing but a simple fur sarong made his pledge seem more legitimate: after all, she'd read about barbarians in medieval times who had been ruthless savages, and they rarely ever made pledges to protect someone. However, that was simply because they held honor above everything else, and once they made a pledge they could never allow themselves to break it: that was why they rarely ever offered their lives.

"If you really feel that way, I wouldn't mind having you around," Autumn snapped, scowling as she stomped over to the man; with rough hands, she grabbed his shoulders and pulled on them until he got the message and stood up, "but I have one condition if you want to stay with me: stop with the all the bowing and the kneeling, because if you're going to serve me then you'll serve me as an equal! You're free to do whatever you want, got it?!"

The giant literally froze in amazement upon hearing her words; then he started to cry before he could stop.

 _'Thank you,'_ Auron stated gruffly, rubbing his eyes with an ashamed expression.

"Excuse me for interrupting the moment, but I think we should be getting back to your friends," Kara muttered, rubbing the gooseflesh off of her arms with a grimace; she wouldn't say it aloud, but everything she was learning about Autumn Fyre seriously gave her the creeps. "I'm sure your dragon friend and that knight are worried about us being gone this long."

"Fine," Autumn sighed, rolling her eyes and extending her hand to Auron. "Come on, big guy, let's get back to camp."

With gentle movements, the lumbering giant took her fragile hand in his own and allowed her to lead the way back to where Bowen and Draco were waiting. When the knight saw Auron standing next to Autumn, he bristled and instantly reached for his sword, but the dragon tapped his shoulder using his tail and directed the man's attention to their interlocked hands.

"Autumn, why are you holding that savage's hand?" Bowen demanded in reprimanding tone.

"He's not a savage!" Autumn hissed, balling her free hand into an angry fist. "He's a mute, for God's sake! He can't speak out loud because of a problem with his mind, so lay off… and quit insulting people like you know everything! Jesus…"

That said, the small girl plopped down on the ground and patted the dirt next to her, motioning for Auron to relax and take a seat. The man complied almost instantly, folding his legs Indian-style and calmly resting his hands on his knees. Autumn stared off into space as she thought back to the dream she'd been having about her family: it hadn't actually been just a dream, though… her mind had dragged one of her memories to the surface while she'd been sleeping. Now she couldn't keep herself from remembering that day: after having such a vivid dream about it, it wasn't very surprising.

After all, it was the moment her world turned upside down and humanity had turned its back on her.

Autumn's mind slowly began to drift onto the experiences she'd endured after that day: torture, beatings, teasing, hatred, name-calling—she had been through almost every kind of abuse except for sexual, and that was simply because people were too scared to get that close to her body.

"Autumn, what's wrong?" Bowen suddenly asked, finally noticing her vacant expression. He had been talking to Kara quite happily for the past few minutes, but now he was concerned by the vacant way she was staring at the fire. When he tried to touch her shoulder, she unexpectedly flinched away from his hand and the knight pulled back in surprise; the frightened look on her face made him realize she'd expected him to hit her.

Draco noticed the reaction and blinked, silently taking it in.

"Autumn, you really are acting strange tonight," Bowen pointed out.

"I don't feel well," the girl replied emotionlessly, getting to her feet and walking toward the forest.

"Where are you going?" Kara asked worriedly.

"Huh?" Autumn asked absently, voice coming out as a monotone. "Oh… I don't know yet."

"You shouldn't be moving around after losing so much blood," Bowen chided, but the girl simply ignored him and continued walking. In truth, Autumn was getting annoyed with the knight's bitter attitude: she didn't know why she wanted to help him, but she guessed it was because he was the first person to ever treat her like a normal person… or maybe that was just wishful thinking. Hiking up her skirts to keep them from getting dirty, Autumn walked through the shadows. She didn't hear the pursuer behind her; she was too unfocused.

After stepping into a moonlit glade of trees, Autumn slowed her pace and stared up at the moon with empty eyes. Letting go of her dress and allowing her arms to hang limply at her sides, the small teenager did nothing except gaze at the full moon. A gentle wind blew through the clearing as she tried to figure out what was wrong with her, lifting strands of her long hair and causing it to reflect the light like a glossy mirror. Slowly lifting her hands to her face as her confusion and pain rose to the surface, Autumn fell to her knees and limply let herself fall on her side as she silently began to cry.

She couldn't understand why she did things half the time, and she didn't know what to believe anymore.

For her, life was so complicated and confusing that it was beyond frightening: she was someone who had grown up in the future, but she had been tormented there because she wasn't a normal human. Now, she had been thrust into the long-distant past and been transferred into one of America's most famous movies, a place where people acted like her life was actually something very worthwhile.

Here in the realm of fantasy, people seemed to care; back in reality, people loathed her very existence.

Her life was so confusing.

When a twig snapped somewhere in the darkness behind her, Autumn stopped crying and shakily got up, wiping her eyes before she turned around and started looking for the person lurking in the shadows. After a moment, someone stepped into the glade with her and she sighed when she realized it was only Bowen. She gave him a halfhearted grin and started to walk away into the forest, but he simply followed her.

After several moments of this, Autumn turned around and glared at him.

"Why are you still following me, Bowen?" she demanded, glaring before stalking off again; the man simply shrugged and continued to match her pace. When she finally gave up and sat down on a log, the knight sat down next to her and offered her a chunk of bread. Autumn abruptly turned her head away and refused to take it since she felt like she would burst into tears.

"Why are you angry with me?" Bowen finally asked.

"I'm not angry with you," Autumn muttered, painfully avoiding his gaze. "I'm mad at myself because I couldn't make you listen to me when I tried to warn you about Einon. Whenever I see your arm and remember what he did to you, I feel like a failure. Even though I already knew what was going to happen, I couldn't stop it. I know we fought, and I haven't forgiven you just yet… but that doesn't mean I don't care about you."

"I'm sorry for not listening to you, but I see now that he isn't the child I trained," the knight stated hoarsely; his expression was so heartbroken that it made the girl's shattered heart crack just a little more. Then she got an idea and turned to look at him with a tentative expression: after glancing down at her small, pale hand, she debated on trying what her father had done to the old man and decided to go through with it.

Bowen wasn't a cruel human, so he wouldn't judge her like everyone had judged her father.

Hesitantly stretching out her shaking hand, the small girl closed her eyes and tensed her shoulders as she touched his arm: he let out a gasp and went rigid as her icy energy surged throughout his body, but a second later she withdrew and he stared at his healed arm in amazement. There wasn't a single scratch on it, and the man's skin even looked fresher than new somehow.

"You can do amazing things for someone so young," he complimented, but Autumn snorted and rolled her eyes in amusement when she heard the tremble in his voice. After sitting there for several more minutes in silence, she leaned her head against his shoulder and decided to ignore the way he tensed up. After all, she'd been expecting it after everything else.

"Thank you," Autumn murmured, feeling content just to be sitting there with him.

"For what?" Bowen asked in confusion. "I didn't do anything that was worth receiving gratitude, did I?"

"You were the first person to see me as something more than an animal," the girl explained, mirroring Auron's words.

"Oi! Look! I found the knight and his bitch!" a voice suddenly called from the trees, startling Autumn into sitting upright. The small girl looked up and saw that an entire patrol of soldiers who had been shrouded in the forest were running toward the glade, brandishing swords, cleavers, and bows. Autumn froze when she heard the unsheathing of Bowen's sword, and she looked up at him in horror when she realized that he was planning to fight these men all alone. Frankly, it was futile to call for help since they were too far from the camp, but Autumn understood that they were vastly outnumbered.

Immediately realizing that she had no choice, Autumn slowly stood up and stepped in front of the knight.

Lifting her head and facing her opponents, the girl arched her back with a gasp as unbridled power began rushing through her veins. White sparkles of light automatically began to appear in the air around her body, silhouetting two majestic shapes as she focused on her innate powers: spreading her arms as her the sparkling lights slowly began to look like the wings of an angel, Autumn took that moment to glance over her shoulder and warn him.

"Stay back and out of the way, otherwise I could hurt you by accident," Autumn called with a sad smile. "Oh… and I suggest you cover your ears."

Bowen gave her a look of confusion but did as she asked and covered his ears, slowly backing away. Giving him a small salute and a grin, Autumn turned around once again and abruptly tossed her head back, letting loose an earsplitting shriek that made her assailants fall to their knees in pain. Once they were down, she stopped screaming and let the fury of her powers take over her mind: the energy that she had always been suppressing, the energy that she was so afraid of, all of it came rushing forth and filled her body with absolute power. With a flash of light that left the patrol partially blinded by radiance, the girl's wings erupted from her back and her body shone with a glow that could only be described as holy.

Autumn Fyre's startling angelic appearance made the soldiers waver for a second, because she looked like something that had come straight out of the bible. The angel took a gentle step forward, red dress and thigh-length brown hair billowing around her body like the gravity had been removed from them. When they rushed at her, Autumn was so ready for the attack that she found it almost funny: with blades made of light, the glowing girl whirled like a dancer and began to cut down the men with ease, crushing their skulls and puncturing their lungs as her clothes and hair continued to defy gravity.

She could taste drops of blood as she cut down anything she saw in her path; it's metallic flavor was heavy in her mouth. Blinded by her own fury, she extended her hand and clasped the face of a soldier who had just charged at her; without even waiting for him to react, she sent a lightning bolt into his body and blew his head off from the shoulders up. When another man came at her from behind, she flipped forward and sent her foot into his chin, using the frozen spike in her heel to skewer his jaw. Blood burst from the man's mouth and covered the ground, and a gurgled scream escaped his throat before he died. She was nothing but a flexible flurry of light and death, cutting down soldiers one by one with little effort. Autumn didn't feel tired from her efforts, she simply felt the calming touch of rag coursing through her veins. Soldiers screamed and shouted for a retreat, but she followed anything that ran from her, killed anything that got into her line of sight and moved.

Anything and everything she saw was going to die tonight.

She leapt high into the air and flew down toward a large man, engulfing him in a shroud of white flames and reveling in the way he screamed; then she killed another man by electrocuting him, allowing it to course through his body until his corpse caught fire. The horsemen had vanished and there were now only a handful of soldiers left: blood stained the beautiful blades connected to Autumn's hands, obscuring the light emanating from them. Autumn's eyes settled down onto the last soldier, a youth who looked no older than herself, and she charged at him without feeling.

He let out a cry when she sent him flying with a wave of energy, and his grey eyes dilated when she straddled him. She reveled in his fear and loved the feeling his terrified expression gave her: this little boy knew that his body was no match for her power, and she loved knowing that he had come face to face with a monster that was worse than the one hiding under his bed. Drawing back her bladed wrist with a sadistic grin, Autumn aimed for his throat and plunged down the glowing blade with all of the strength residing inside her body.

And the moment before it killed him, she came to her senses.

Autumn Fyre literally froze into a statue as the light obscuring her irises and shrouding her body vanished, letting her hair cascade around her shoulders and allowing her dress to billow back down into a normal position. She saw the terrified expression of the boy she had been about to kill and felt her heart stop for nearly seven seconds. Slowly drawing back as her eyes became huge with shock, the girl crawled away from him on her backside until she touched something wet and soft; looking down at her hand, she felt her lungs locking up with horror at the sight of a cleaved human head.

Turning her eyes away from the corpse, she looked around with eyes that shone with utter horror: the area around her had been turned into a massive bloodbath. So much blood had spilled into the river that it had literally turned red in certain places. No one had even touched her: all the blood was coming from the dead soldiers. Autumn's heart palpitated when she realized that this was the carnage her rage had produced: she had only meant to beat them up, not murder them. Scrabbling to her feet as the boy on the ground began to cry, Autumn stepped back and started to hyperventilate.

When she realized what she'd done, she had an extreme panic attack.

Golden eyes frantic with hysterical terror, she stared at the broken corpses around her as her body began shaking with fright.

Something suddenly touched her shoulder and she shrieked, attempting to bolt away from it. After a moment of struggling, she risked a glance and saw that she was looking up at Bowen, but his normally suave face was now a mask of fear and anger. Autumn instantly went numb and bolted into the forest; he tried to follow, but she was too fast, bounding over rocks like they were pebbles. A few minutes later he heard a wail and looked up as the sound of heart-wrenching sobs broke the stillness of the night. Resting plainly against the full moon, he saw the silhouette of a girl with extraordinarily long hair standing on the edge of a cliff and clutching her chest as she cried into the night. The wails were sad and confused, deep and high, dark and gray. The sound of them painted so many pictures in the knight's mind that he couldn't name any of them.

He could only listen and watch as she stood there alone, wailing her moonlit sorrow into the night.


	7. Chapter 7

  
**Chapter Six: Wrath of an Angel**  


After several hours of raw-throated sobbing, Autumn lay shivering on the rocks where she'd finally stopped crying. She felt the cold biting at her skin through her dress, and although the fabric was thicker than nothing, the wind didn't help. It had taken her hours just to calm herself down, but now she felt confused: she had lost control and killed people in the past, but it had never been on purpose. After a few moments of staring at the moon, the girl sat up on the cold rock and rubbed her head thoughtfully: she would have to get back to the others later on since she was a total wreck right now.

Making her decision to camp out for the night, the girl got up from the ledge and walked down the slope rather shakily. She later stumbled into a thicket that was covered with clover and decided to settle in the cool plants. Removing her dress and lying down in her underwear, Autumn rested her head on her arms and closed her eyes with a sigh; it took her several hours to fall asleep.

The next day, Autumn caught up to the others using her wings, but the girl firmly chose to remain behind everyone else with the exception of Auron. Kara seemed intrigued about why Autumn was acting so reclusive and continuously asked the girl what was wrong, but the fiery-haired woman got no answer.

Draco had flown off somewhere before Autumn had arrived that morning, but Kara had mentioned that he'd promised to show up for their usual 'act' as he'd come to call it. Autumn eventually dropped so far behind Bowen, Kara, and his horse that Auron began to grow worried and lifted her onto his massive shoulders.

The girl barely registered his actions and hardly cared.

Several hours later, Autumn was in a very detached state and Auron was still carrying her on his shoulders. Kara continuously glanced at the girl over her shoulder, but even though she was obviously worried, she didn't say anything. Autumn was so lost in her own thoughts that she didn't even notice that Bowen and Kara were having a conversation until they started yelling, turning the good-natured chat into a dispute quicker than the blink of an eye.

"I was there, and that rebel was my father! Let others stand with you! This time will be different!" Kara snapped, jerking Autumn out of her daze. The small girl glanced down at the two bickering adults and cocked her head to the side in confusion when Bowen stared at Kara with a tiny, bitter grin. "What are you looking at?"

"Myself, once upon a time," the knight replied, shaking his head. Autumn flinched when a loud flapping unexpectedly assaulted her ears and Draco flew over them; the girl had heard him flying earlier in the afternoon, but she'd dismissed it when he hadn't arrived and hadn't bothered tell the others. Now, because Bowen had stormed off with his horse, Kara fell back so she could walk beside Auron and Autumn.

The redhead looked thoroughly dejected for some reason or another.

"I'll see you in the village, Draco!" the knight called angrily, scowling when the dragon passed by without any form of acknowledgement; Autumn could hear the frustration in the man's voice, but she didn't say anything because she was too confused with herself. At the moment, Autumn knew she couldn't trust herself to say the right thing.

"That's easy for _you_ to say!" Draco called sarcastically. "This time I'll collect the money and you can die!"

Autumn heard Bowen growl something incoherent, so the dragon had clearly not helped with the knight's foul mood.

 

**TXXXXXT**

Flies buzzed annoyingly around Autumn's ears and she waved them away in frustration. She, Bowen, and a whole crowd of villagers had gathered on the river and the heat was becoming irritating. She was dying to change into her school uniform, but Bowen wouldn't let her leave his side long enough to slip them on. According to him, if she died of heatstroke before they finished the job, at least she would die looking pretty.

Kara had stormed off somewhere when Bowen had tried to make her a part of the plan, but Autumn already knew what the woman was going to do thanks to the movie she'd watched as a child. Really, taking part in events that had become a famous movie felt amusing to Autumn. Bowen was making a deal with the village leader. When the man finished counting the money he handed it to the knight, who took it and nodded.

Then Kara came screeching down the boardwalk.

"Wait! Wait!" the redhead screamed, and Autumn sighed in relief when they all turned to look at her.

"Uh… it's her!" Bowen exclaimed, obviously trying to think of a fast explanation. "The beautiful wandering idiot!"

"I'm telling you, this knight is no dragon slayer!" Kara accused, pointing a finger at Bowen. "He really isn't!"

"You're mistaken, my child!" a gentle voice intervened. "He's the greatest dragon slayer you'll ever see!"

Autumn heard Bowen groan and glanced over her shoulder to see a familiar man hobbling toward them using a staff. He was dressed in brown robes and a had funny looking hat on his head, and Autumn recognized him to be the monk from the beginning of the her adventure, the one who had taken notes of Bowen's battle with Draco. After a moment of staring, she frowned and wondered whether the monk had been documenting her actions, too, since she had thrown a rock at Bowen, fallen into the water, and tried to free Draco from his bonds during the fight. However, her worry drained into amusement when the monk tripped over a small bunch of pigs who were nuzzling the dry earth for food.

"Brother Gilbert!" Bowen called, feigning amazement and surprise.

"Bowen! Thank God you are alive and… whole!" the monk exclaimed with a chuckle. "You're guaranteed a dead dragon with this man! I swear I've seen him slay almost _two_ dragons!"

"Almost two," Kara noted, narrowing her jade green eyes at him; the eccentric monk's bragging wasn't really supposed to be a part of their plan, but even though Autumn found him to slightly annoying, she had to admit that he was amusing.

"Well, I didn't actually see the death blow of the second," the monk exclaimed, turning to look at the knight with a happy grin, "but Bowen is here so he must have won!"

"Don't you see?" Kara exclaimed, shaking her head with a furious expression. "He is in _league_ with the dragon!"

Autumn instantly spun around, golden eyes wide when she remembered what would end up happening at the lake. Bowen noticed the danger in that sentence and he immediately started to chuckle, causing a chain reaction of laughter through the crowd. They'd set up another wooden platform, a spear-arrow set up like at their first stop. Bowen was currently instructing the monk on how to operate it, since the man had wanted to help and wouldn't quit pestering the knight until he agreed. After a few minutes of watching how Kara glared, Autumn hiked up her skirts and jogged over to Bowen's side.

"Hey, the water in this part of the lake is way too shallow. We need to pick some other part," Autumn whispered, leaning up on her tiptoes to get as close as possible to his ear; the knight simply rolled his eyes and dismissed her claim. "Fine, Bowen, go ahead and be that way—but don't blame me when Draco doesn't sink under the water like you're expecting."

"You're nothing but a simple girl," Bowen snorted, giving her a haughty expression. "What do you know?"

"The future!" Autumn retorted sweetly, folding her arms with a triumphant expression. "I come from it, remember?"

When his eyes became uneasy.

"Here he comes!" Brother Gilbert squealed, jumping up and down as Draco flew over the river; Bowen brought down his sword to let the arrow fly and Draco caught it, just like last time. Autumn, meanwhile, was busy inspecting her nails with a bored expression since she already knew that this was going to go wrong. Just as she'd expected, the dragon crashed into the water and hit his head with a loud splash: the water was only a few meters deep, so Draco fell onto his back with a groan.

"Ooouch…" he mumbled.

"I hear ya," Autumn muttered, wincing a little. "That didn't sound pleasant.

"Sink," Bowen muttered, blinking in surprise that rapidly became frustration. _"Sink,_ dammit!"

"I can't!" Draco growled through clenched teeth. "It's not deep enough!"

"Well done, Bowen, you've done it again!" Brother Gilbert cried. "What a brute! It's even bigger than the last one!"

"Actually he's about the same size…" Bowen nervously boasted, biting his lip. "Almost exactly, in fact."

"Uh, oh," Autumn giggled mockingly, casually hiking up her skirts as she prepared to run for her life. "What'd I tell ya?"

She had a nasty suspicion that she and her friends were going to be chased by cannibals in just a few short minutes.

Autumn heard the villagers making odd noises as they gathered and looked at the dragon, but she couldn't deny that a shiver ran down her spine just a second before the atmosphere surrounding those people changed: Draco was still recovering and probably had a terrible headache after that kind of crash, but Autumn smacked her forehead when a mutter began to echo through the crowd.

"Meat… meat… meat… meat… MEAT!" the villagers chanted, the word growing in intensity and volume as all of the villagers started hauling their weapons into the water.

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" Draco squawked, quickly realizing that he was in an awkward situation. "Oh, deaaar!"

The dragon instantly scrabbled back to his feet and clumsily raced several steps out into the river, trying to get away from the crazed mob without getting hurt. Even as Autumn hiked her skirts up even further, she stared in astonishment as the people swarmed him like flies to a wound, but somehow he was able to get away after much struggling and roaring at them. She almost laughed when he took flight like a spooked bird and glanced behind him with large eyes.

Then she remembered that she and her friends were the next targets for the villagers: in her opinion, being eaten alive by cannibals wasn't exactly a laughing matter. The villagers stopped when their target got away, but then they slowly turned to look at the group who had claimed to be dragon hunters. Silence followed for one sickening moment, and Autumn tensed with a freaked expression, stomach prickling with anxiety.

These people were pissed off because they had lied and tricked them.

"What's going on?" Brother Gilbert asked worriedly.

"Meat… meat… meat… meat… MEAT!" the villagers chanted, racing at them now.

"We're running like hell! That's what's going on!" Autumn shrieked, grabbing the monk's hand and bolting in the opposite direction with Auron, Bowen, and Kara close behind. Chaos broke out not even a second afterward and everyone rushed at them with shovels and pitchforks, screaming things like liar, sneak, but most of all, _meat._ During the panic, Autumn lost sight of Bowen, Kara, and Gilbert for a moment and she would have lost sight of Auron if the Barbarian hadn't swung her into his arms like a rag-doll bride. She clutched at the man's arm with a frightened expression as he dashed around the crazed villagers, trying to find their companions by carrying her through the fray.

Suddenly Auron flew forward and Autumn went rolling across the ground.

She heard the man's voice in her mind, reassuring her that he was okay, but Autumn was in a bit of a pickle. Dazed from her unexpected tumble, the small girl glanced through the flying feet and legs and saw a set of horse hooves racing around the complex docs. Autumn got up and tried to follow, but everyone was screaming and yelling. Suddenly, everything seemed to stop on the middle island, where all of the docks met. Autumn, who was exhausted from being knocked around so much, summoned enough energy to propel herself into the air.

Then, with an impact that reverberated through the throng like soundless thunder, the tiny girl haphazardly blasted herself over the crowd with a small shriek; she would have come down flat on her back had Auron not leapt up and caught her like a football. After he landed, the barbarian grabbed Autumn's arm and swung her onto his back, giving her the silent instructions to hold on.

Bowen, Kara, and Gilbert were on the knight's horse in the center of the ring of villagers while Autumn and Auron stood beside them. However, the silver-haired girl was so tired that she didn't even catch what the knight was saying; after a moment he threw down the pig-skin bag with the gold at the leader's feet, but he wasn't happy and stepped right over it. Mutterings and mumblings came from the crowd as they closed in on the others. When one of the villagers swung a shovel at Kara's face, however, Autumn planted her hands on Auron's shoulders and flipped over his head like a gymnast.

The second she landed, Autumn flung her arms and let her wings explode into existence.

Some of the villagers backed down at the sight of her massive wings: an angel suddenly appearing out of nowhere wasn't really the greatest thing to experience when you were trying to murder someone and use their corpse for food. Other villagers came close and tried to make her back down, but Autumn swiped at them with her swords. An unexpectedly loud sound came from above them as Draco suddenly dove down from the sky, picking up Nera and Auron with his claws.

When the villagers scattered like ducklings, the dragon took flight again with Nera kicking and whinnying in terror.

The only problem was that he'd forgotten to take Autumn.

As the dragon flew away, the villagers regained their composition and noticed that Autumn was still there; after a moment they began to re-circle her in an effort to close her in. Shaking her head with an irritated sigh, Autumn let her wings dissolve and looked around for a way out; after a moment, she noticed that the docks were clear of any villagers.

After evaluating the distance between them and the docks, Autumn shot forward and blasted herself over the crowd.

The villagers screamed in alarm when Autumn suddenly flew overhead and landed on the other side of the mob, but the girl quickly hiked up her skirts and pelted down the dirt road at full tilt with her brown hair flying. After a moment of stupidly staring after her, the mob pursued her with that increasingly irritating chant of 'Meat! Meat! Meat!'.

Despite the fact that she was running at top speed, Autumn rapidly began to feel fatigue pulling at her limbs due to the heat of the sun on her body. After a while of running down the dirt path like a girl from a witch-trial movie, she changed direction and ran for the forest with desperate golden eyes, longing for the shade of the trees. Autumn raced into the woods like an animal being hunted, crashing through bushes and thickets as if they were made of nothing.

 _Crap… crap… crap…_ Autumn angrily chanted, barely avoiding getting her dress caught on burrs as she went. _Sure, they just had to forget me there, of all people! This is the perfect little cherry to go on top of the shit-cake I call life! Yay me!_

Autumn continued to rant to herself as she jumped across a small thicket and continued her sprint through the woods. Her feet were starting to hurt and her hair was disheveled, but she somehow managed to keep her dress in top condition. Autumn's pace eventually began to slow, however, and soon she came to a complete stop. Feeling thirst clenching her throat, she stumbled around in a search for water and found a stream nearby.

Literally feeling as though she were the living dead due to her exhaustion, the disheveled girl walked to the water like a zombie. With shaking limbs, she knelt down and furiously scooped the cool liquid into her mouth. After her drink, Autumn fell back and breathed deeply as she stared at the sky. Sunlight glanced down at her from the trees and a soft breeze brushed against Autumn's face as she closed her eyes.

"Why would they leave me there?" she whined as the hurt constricted her throat. "It's not fair!"

Autumn eventually fell asleep for several hours, but none of the usual nightmares haunted her.

When she woke up again, it was nearly sundown and the air was much cooler.

Rubbing her eyes as she sat up and looked around, Autumn lazily got another drink from the stream. Upon looking into the water, she got a murky view of her hair and grimaced: her chestnut locks were tousled and flat on one side from sleeping on the ground, but at least she hadn't got mud in them. Slowly getting up and stretching her sore limbs, Autumn Fyre began to make her way through the forest once again.

Hunger was starting to pull at her belly, though, and unfortunately she had absolutely no idea how to hunt. Plus, even if she did, the girl knew she wouldn't be able to stomach skinning an animal that had been alive just hours beforehand. As you might have guessed, Autumn wasn't exactly the type of girl who attracted loads of good luck.

Quite the contrary, sometimes she felt more like a danger magnet.

As a result, it wasn't all that suprising when she happened to bump into one of those unpleasant situations: the girl had been walking for hours when she realized she could see an opening in the trees up ahead. Feeling elated that she had managed to get out of the woods, the girl hiked up her skirts and darted forward with a happy cry, and she was just within closing distance of the tree-line when something painful collided with her back. She was tossed head-over-heels from the force of it, and she somehow ended up doing a somersault before landing sprawled out on her stomach.

When she attempted to get up, an extremely acute pain seared through her upper torso and she hastily decided against moving too quickly: something was definitely wrong with her back, and the wet feeling trickling down her spine had her worried. So, straining herself with the attempt to see what was wrong, Autumn glanced over her shoulder and paled when she realized that there was an arrow sticking out of her. The girl slowly attempted to crawl to all fours when she realized she was in danger... and she was about to stand up when she heard the tightening of a bowstring.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Little Lady," a horribly familiar voice mocked; Autumn flinched and turned to glare at King Einon, who was grinning at her from atop his white horse among his hunting party. "I finally caught you."

"Your highness, shall I kill her for you again?" a certain rat-faced man asked sweetly. "I swear, I she was dead before."

"No, Felton, she is not a threat right now. I want her at my court," Einon coyly replied, turning his horse away as the others threw ropes around Autumn's body and jerked her to her feet. Regardless of the shaft sticking out of her back, the men roughly forced her to follow alongside the horses against her will.

**TXXXXXT**

"Let me go!" Autumn hissed, struggling against her bonds with all of her might. "Jerk!"

"Come on, there's no use in walking around like that is there?" Einon cooed, carefully attempting to remove the ropes holding her captive. Autumn bristled and snapped at him with her teeth when his fingers brushed against her lips, but she didn't say a word since it was obvious that he had no intention of releasing her. Einon stretched out another hand to take off a second rope, and Autumn valiantly tried to bite him again, fangs glinting white in the light from the fire.

"Get away from me!" the girl snapped, struggling to get free. "I hate you! You're nothing but a big-nosed _creep_!"

"Calm down!" the corrupt king ordered, running a gentle hand through her disheveled brown hair.

Einon's hand balled into a fist, painfully holding her in place while he hit her in the face.

The blow was so unexpected that Autumn actually squeaked like a mouse and let go of the hold on her powers, causing her own hair to fan out like a cotton ball with static. Since Autumn was too shaken to move for a few moments, the king removed the last of the ropes and got up with a laugh. The girl sat on the floor as he did so, feeling utterly dazed.

The king tossed what looked like a dress at her.

"Get changed quickly: your stylist will be here soon, and he doesn't take any nonsense," the king sneered, walking to the door with a satisfied expression. "After you look like a proper young lady, the guards will escort you to my table."

He had just started opening the entryway when Autumn got her voice back.

"If you honestly think I'm going to eat with a pig-headed wombat like you, you're wrong!" Autumn called sweetly, grabbing the back of a chair and throwing it at the door with all of her strength. The wooden article of furniture smashed against the metal workings as he closed the cell with a bang; she could hear him laughing on the other side. Autumn grumbled to herself and glared venomously at the dress, wishing it would burst into flames.

 _Damn prick thinks he can make me wear a dress,_ the girl silently grumbled, looking at the thing in disgust. She realized after a moment of looking at it that the design was actually kind of pretty: the fabric was made of dark green satin with gold trim, the top wasn't low, and it wasn't exactly what Autumn would call ugly. Really, it wasn't actually all that bad; the only problems were the sleeves. They were long, and the shoulders puffed up and were embroidered what looked like jail stripes. The trim was also overly frilly: never a good thing for a fashionable woman.

 _Well,_ Autumn thought, smiling to herself, _we'll just have to do a little bit of adjusting._

She looked at the inside of the dress and discovered that there was a light pearly-white fabric underneath the green satin. Autumn grinned and summoned one of her frozen blades in a spray of water before slicing through the original trim on the outside, cutting the green satin to her knees. The white fabric on the inside was cut, as well, so people wouldn't see it underneath the green. The sheer olive outer skirt was the only layer that came down to her ankles: Autumn shortened it so that the parts in the front were shorter and came up to her knees while two longer pieces fell to her mid-calves. She then turned to the sleeves and their horrible puffiness.

 _Yuck,_ she thought to herself, wrinkling her nose as her lips curled in disgust. _Yeah… I may not have much of a fashion sense for a girl my age, but I'm pretty sure that any woman from the future would agree that these sleeves look butt-ugly._

She couldn't sew since she had no thread to work with, so she would just have to cut. Taking the left sleeve, Autumn cut out the puffs so the shoulder would show and still managed to keep the sleeves attached; she made the long sleeves shorter so they went a little higher than her elbows, then she sliced an inch-long slit into the edges, cutting out every second one so that it left a cube-ish pattern. Then she did the same to the other sleeve, slipped the dress over her head, and put on her sandals. She had just approved of her appearance when someone opened the door without knocking and waltzed inside.

"I'm here to style your hair," the man stated unenthusiastically. "Hurry up."

"Well," Autumn snorted, scowling when he motioned for her to move forward. "Hello to you, too."

Several minutes later, Autumn's hair had been tied back into a Sakura-style ponytail with a chiming green ribbon, then braided her extremely long bangs on both sides before tying two more chiming ribbons on the ends: the braided strands hung freely on either side of her face and jingled every time she moved.

Once he was finished with her hair, he applied the barest amount of makeup and left the room with a disgruntled expression. However, after taking a look in the mirror, Autumn couldn't exactly deny that she looked good... in fact, she looked pretty damn amazing, all things considered: it was the first time she'd ever really seen herself in a ponytail like this one, and she had to admit that the style was actually pretty cute on her. After straightening the ribbons in her hair and making sure that the ones at the ends of her bangs wouldn't continuously bump against her thighs, Autumn opened the door...

Only to bump right into Felton and Brock.

"Whoa, what the hell?!" Autumn squeaked, stiffening in alarm until she saw her visitors. "Oh... it's just the two blockheads."

"You're coming with us, girlie," Felton snapped, forcefully making a grab for her arm; Autumn instantly slapped his hand away with a fierce expression and glared. When Brock moved forward and lifted his hand to slap her silly, she darted forward and stomped on his foot as hard as she could. The shocked look on his face was priceless, and his hand stopped mid-swing.

"I can walk on my own, but thank you for the concern," Autumn hissed, glaring at them with a venomous expression before she haughtily started walking down the corridor, following the path to the ballroom by memory. Coming out of the long hall, Autumn padded through an archway and into the dining hall; however, the girl growled in irritation when Felton and Brock tried to escort her to where Einon was sitting.

The girl saw him look up and—for a moment of sweet delight—Autumn saw the expression on his face change from being totally pompous to utterly shocked. Smiling inwardly, the small girl sashayed her way over to the chair he vaguely motioned to: it was on his right due to the fact that Aislinn was sitting on his left. Autumn kept her emotionless mask on display and smoothly sat in the chair, but she didn't do anything except glare at her plate.

"Eat," Einon whispered in her ear; Autumn was just about to refuse when her stomach decided to grumble at her.

 _Traitor,_ she thought gruffly to her stomach while she reached for a small piece of bread. She ate it quickly and took a piece of meat from a plate, all the while grumbling quietly to herself. She felt the King's eyes on her constantly, boring into her face as though she were some kind of experiment; Autumn quickly felt a shiver go up her spine, and it wasn't a good one.

"Sire, who is this?" a man who had walked up to the table asked; a few of the nobles' slaves were brawling in the corner and the noise was quite significant, enough to make the man have to speak abnormally loud. Einon finished taking a long swig from his cup before smiling broadly at the speaker.

"She's my new favorite," the king replied, and that's when Autumn realized he didn't know her name.

Smirking like a madwoman, Autumn planted her chin on her hand and picked at her food triumphantly.

 _Stupid rich moron,_ Autumn muttered inside her head, ranting off several colorful insults. _He's nothing but a dumb doornail! An idiotic stump of a king who thinks he can get everything he wants... what a crybaby he is. Selfish little duck-pig._

Autumn wanted to take the bowl of bread in front of her and whack him across the skull with it. It would make a very lovely sound, considering that it was made of metal. As she was imagining the satisfying BONG! that would resound from the bowl, she lost track of what the man in front of them was saying until Einon pinched her arm.

"What is your name, girl?" the man inquired politely; Autumn opened her sparkling yellow eyes as wide as she could and glared at him with a vengeance, making him flinch since he'd obviously never seen a girl with yellow irises before.

"My name is Autumn Fyre, now go away!" the small girl snapped; taken aback by her attitude, the man took a tiny step backwards and she went back to picking at her food in an unhappy mood. Later on that night, Autumn was roughly dragged to her room by the King himself. Who looked pretty damn angry, if she wasn't entirely mistaken. The thought made her smirk: maybe this would make him leave her alone. She followed him down the hallway and easily kept up with his rapid pace, but he was holding her arm in a rather uncomfortably tight grip. As they neared the door to her room, however, the man suddenly threw her against the wall and planted both hands on either side of her shoulders.

Being so small, Autumn's head only came up to the beginning of his chest.

 _Big-nosed freak,_ she thought angrily. _I hate being so tiny... why can't I hit a good growth spurt for once?!_

"You tried my patience tonight," he hissed, forcing her to keep eye contact. "What did you do to the dress?"

"I didn't like a few parts, so I modified it," Autumn retorted, holding his cold blue eyes with her fiery golden ones; she was going to lose her patience if he didn't let go, but Einon obviously sensed this and laughed in her face.

"I don't care if you hurt me because you'll only be hurting your friend in the process. I cannot die anyway," the corrupt king boasted, smirking in triumph when Autumn's expression became questioning. A second later she remembered the most crucial part of the entire movie and froze: she had forgotten that Einon was linked to Draco.

That was why he didn't seem bothered by her powers.

"You… bastard…" Autumn hissed, face contorting in rage as her shoulders tensed up; when he laughed again, the different tone of it chilled her: with deft hands, he opened the left side of the embroidered coat he was wearing, showing the skin underneath. Where it should have been smooth, Autumn saw a twisted, knotted scar that roiled in his flesh. The skin was white and dead, shining in the little light that the torches gave off. Autumn's eyes instantly went wide and she cringed into what room she had left of the wall, trying not to touch his arm in the process.

The scar was absolutely horrific.

"I should have died, but I was saved," Einon explained, cold blue eyes giving off no other emotion except malice; Autumn couldn't think of anything to say back to him. "Oh, yes, I was saved… saved by your surrogate father, the last dragon in existence."

"I already know that much, you fucktard, so get the hell off your high horse and leave me alone!" Autumn finally snapped, shoving him away with an irritated growl. "You overlooked so many things concerning who I really am that you don't even _deserve_ my attention, you freak! I don't speak to idiots like you, so go back to your room and play with your dolls."

That said, Autumn stormed angrily into her room and slammed the door shut, locking it tight with a huff and plopped down on her at the small window in her room with empty golden eyes, Autumn felt ashamed that she couldn't stop the tears that started running down her face. Her body shuddered with quiet sobs as she wept from anger and sorrow: her already-shattered heart had broken down even further when she'd realized what Einon had told her the night before was the truth, and she hadn't come out of her room since then. Autumn's stomach muttered to itself as it cried out for food, but she denied it anything and just lay on her bed with no motivation whatsoever to do anything at all.

She had virtually given up on her future.

Life was just too cruel, and she was sick due to the strain it had put on her body.

When she thought about how she had slowly, but surely, come to love Bowen, Kara, Auron, and Draco, a fresh wave of sobs hit her and she buried her face in her pillow. Einon was an immortal like her, but the difference between them was that he couldn't die from getting injured the way she could. With special traits like that, it was no wonder he wasn't afraid of her. She couldn't kill him, and to make matters worse… somehow, he had figured out that she was an immortal as well. She knew that the only dragon existing now was Draco, but he had a scar in the exact same place as Einon. They were connected, and Autumn finally understood that if she hurt the king in an act to escape, she would unintentionally be hurting Draco as well.

Her already broken heart felt heavy when she thought of her friend sharing his pains with such a horrible man.

She didn't know the extent of the connection, only that it was the reason why Einon couldn't die.

She looked out the window again as tears continued to fall from her eyes: twilight was just settling over the countryside, and the sky was slowly becoming a deep blue tinged with red and orange. She could hear the sounds of people scurrying around and horses whinnying; she could smell fire, smoke, and food; but when she heard a horse neigh loudly and a few mutterings of stable hands, Autumn immediately thought of Nera and the others.

A sudden rumble of far-off thunder came to her ears.

 _Why did they leave me?_ Autumn wondered forlornly as rain began to fall. After a moment of wishful thinking, the small girl sighed and began humming some to herself: music calmed her in times like these, making her think of home. If she was going to be honest with herself, Autumn thought about the future a lot more than she should have. However, if she didn't think about the present she would never make her way back to the future.

She needed to avoid that, so she turned her mind away from wishful thinking

**TXXXXXT**

It was just after midnight when a loud banging erupted on the door to her room. Autumn groaned sleepily and dismissed it the first time since she had put every scrap of furniture, save the bed, in front of the door and had locked it from the inside with a large plank. However, the banging continued for several minutes, along with a great deal of angry shouting.

"What do you want?! It's the middle of the night, you idiot! Go away!" Autumn shrieked, praying that her visitor would give up and leave her alone; there was a pause, then some muttering and another set of bangs. "Can't you tell that the door is locked, you stupid tree stump? Or do you really have chips for brains and a block for a head?"

"The King demands your presence!" a male voice shouted, and her countenance darkened like a cloud: to say the least, her patience was definitely wearing thin and Einon was trekking on thin ice with Autumn… very thin ice indeed.

"Kindly tell his Majesty," Autumn venomously spat, shoulders shaking with anger, "that I'd rather eat nails and balance on an erupting volcano with fifty men stacked on top of my head than be in the same room as him!"

"He says he'll set you free if you come!" the man on the other side of the door coaxed. Autumn's ears instantly perked up at this, and she froze: he would set her free? Just for talking with him? She hardly believed this to be the truth, but still… the aspect of freedom was a horrible chance to be swinging in front of the angel's face.

 _Dammit, he knows how to get my attention,_ Autumn growled inwardly, walking over to her bed and getting dressed in one of the replicate school uniform that Einon's servants had tailored for her. Then she proceeded to heave everything away from the door and unbarred it, opening it to see two young soldiers standing at attention: she looked up at them with a scowl.

"You can go, I can get there myself," Autumn grumbled, clearly on edge and cranky about having been woken up at midnight.

The two soldiers nodded at her statement, clearly not about to argue, and sauntered off down the hall in the opposite direction. Autumn stomped down the corridors, not caring if she woke anyone up with her excessive grumbling, muttering, and complaining. When she reached the door to the King's room, the guards made a move to stop her so they could announce her presence, but Autumn simply kept going and blasted it down with a lightning bolt. The blinding electricity reduced the wood to nothing but splinters and caused it to fall into the room, where it clattered on the stone floor. The stunned soldiers immediately tried to stop her, but she was already halfway into the room and walking over the broken door.

"There had better be a good damn reason for you to wake me up, otherwise I'm going to turn into the Queen of Hearts!" Autumn snapped, golden eyes hazed and long brown hair tousled with sleep. The king was sitting in a chair by the fire, but he looked startled since his door was now lying in pieces on the stone floor, blasted into almost nothing by one of her lightning bolts. However, his expression became amused when he saw her tired condition.

"I have been considering your release," Einon stated plainly, making Autumn's face twist into a mask of pure hatred. The girl couldn't tell if he had really noticed her expression, and even if he did, he didn't show any signs that he had. Continuing his speech, Einon looked at the fire then glanced at her with cold blue eyes, "but I want you to do something for me in return."

"Like I'd do anything for a perverted lump like you!" Autumn abruptly snorted.

"You _would_ if your freedom was on the line," Einon slyly retorted; Autumn's eyes unknowingly began to darken.

"And what would this task be?" the small girl demanded, folding her arms and leaning on her right leg as she cocked her hip. Einon got up from his chair and stalked over to her so suddenly that she didn't have enough time to react. He brought his hand up to her neck and brushed his hand against her satin-like skin, catching a strand of her long brown hair on top of his wrist and watching how it slid over his sleeve like flowing water.

Leaning in close to her ear, he grinned like a madman as her beautifully large eyes went wide.

"Kiss me…" he whispered, reveling in the way she locked up with a series of violent shivers. Autumn drew back as though she'd been stung, letting out a shriek and punching him squarely in the jaw using a jolt of static electricity. Einon was so stunned by the blow that he stumbled backwards a step; Autumn rapidly backed away and pressed herself against the wall, watching as the king wiped a trickle of blood from his mouth.

When he smiled at her, the girl mentally kicked herself.

"Is that what you woke me up to ask?" Autumn angrily demanded. "You're a selfish, horrible, conceited little pig!"

"Very well, I'll tell you my other request," Einon stated, sitting back down in his chair. "If, that is, you want to hear it."

"Just get to the point!" Autumn snapped, folding her arms again. "I don't have all night, you know."

"I want you to kill Bowen," Einon recited, sneering when her face drained of color, "the last Knight to follow the Old Code."

"Never!" Autumn choked out, turning around and darting out of the room when he began to laugh. "I'll escape on my own!"

Ten minutes later, the thoroughly shaken teenager was sitting in the corner of her room with a blank expression on her face. Looking at the floor as her thoughts flew around her head, turmoil threatened to overtake her mind as she weighed her two biggest dilemmas. Einon wanted her to kill Bowen in order to win her freedom.

 _Freaking bastard,_ Autumn muttered silently, kicking a metal bowl across the room and bending it. Upon hearing loud noises from outside the widow, the girl looked up and realized that it was near sunset: she guessed that the servants were getting ready for the evening feast, but she wasn't exactly certain. Autumn put everything back in front of the door and sat in the farthest corner of the room, hugging her knees.

She would never kill Bowen.

 _What the hell is his problem?_ Autumn wondered, shivering as a sick feeling twisted in her stomach. _Does he actually think that I'll kill him? Even if I said I would, I could just run away as soon as I'm free… so, why the heck would he do that?_

As the confusing thoughts assaulted her mind and tormented her fragile heart, Autumn hugged herself tighter and pressed into the wall. She was extremely confused about the situation, and for some reason she felt strangely restless. Glancing at the window once again, she froze when a sudden rush of energy exploded from the walls within her mind. Autumn's eyes became round with fright and she clutched her head as her breath hitched in shock: something strange was happening to her mind, something that she couldn't understand or control. She was thrown to all fours by an unseen force a second later, and she let out an ear-piercing shriek when something began ripping her clothes apart from behind.

As light engulfed her body and her hair began to defy gravity, Autumn clasped her head in terror and let out a scream that bounced off the stone walls: then, fire exploded out of her upper back, silhouetting a massive set of wings that extended to their full span on their own accord. As the girl continued to scream and writhed on the ground, her yellow eyes darkened in hue to a burning red and her canines extended into inch-long fangs. Abruptly, the girl stopped screaming and started breathing calmly as her mind filled with peace, kneeling on all fours as her hair swirled weightlessly above her.

Power had flooded her veins, but this time she had complete control.

 _My gift to you, Dear Granddaughter,_ a whispering voice murmured into her ear.

Autumn instantly glanced up and looked around frantically, but there was absolutely nobody else in the room with her. Feeling terrified by her unexpected change, the small girl timidly crawled to her feet and twisted to check how badly her clothes had ripped. However, to her amazement, the clothes weren't even frayed and her wings had simply formed through them, almost as though they weren't even on her body.

Crimson eyes wide, Autumn looked down at her glowing body in blatant confusion for several long moments. However, when the girl finally realized that she had an unimaginably vast amount of power on her side, she bristled with triumph and made a really stupid decision: she should have broken through the stone wall and jumped out of the castle, but her hatred for the king had overtaken her usually logical mind.

She was being driven crazy by a need to make him hurt.

Baring her fangs in an animalistic grin, Autumn lightly lifted her hand and blinked as a massive explosion of electricity slammed into the world. The light emanated from the blast light up the night sky through the girl's window, and the sound of the thunder echoed so loudly in the castle that everyone within a hundred and fifty meters was left with ringing ears. The guards outside, who had been floored by the explosion, struggled to get away when the glowing angel crashed into the hall. Some of them turned and fled, screaming madly; others stayed put and barred their swords at her.

Face utterly expressionless, Autumn stared at the shell-shocked humans and observed them with blank eyes as they advanced on her. Her long brown hair billowed weightlessly around her body, twisting in the air with every gentle movement she made; when one man thrust his spear at her, Autumn easily knocked it aside and ran down the corridors at so fast that she seemed to disappear for several moments.

She had her target in mind, and nothing would stop her from getting even.

She made it to Einon's newly-replaced door and kicked it in with a single roundhouse, startling the king immensely. When the man saw the winged girl standing in his doorway like, a messenger from God himself, she felt triumphant that he looked terrified for an instant. Autumn's crimson eyes were glowing with her angelic frenzy, and her body seemed to shine even brighter as her anger became profound. Majestically spreading her glowing wings, the angel stood up to her full height and stared him down as her hair and clothes swirled around her body.

She looked almost as though she were completely submerged underwater.

"GUARDS!" Einon screamed, and the men she had passed with ease came running: Autumn could hear them shouting in the distance, but they were far enough from the room that Autumn could torment the king the same way he'd tormented her.

"Had enough of a fright?" Autumn trilled, grinning in satisfaction when Einon snapped his mouth shut. However, when a sudden clang echoed behind her and she glanced over her shoulder, she turned around just in time to have a huge claymore pierce her in the side. Blinking away the pain, Autumn wheeled around and saw a guard stepping back from her in shock.

"So, you want to act like you're all big and bad, do you?" Autumn asked, ripping the weapon out of her body and glaring at her attackers as twinkles of blue light played about the wound; within seconds, the gaping injury had vanished and everyone was staring at the healed flesh with startled looks on their faces. "Well, I'm afraid you just fucked with the wrong girl."

A hissing concussion suddenly slapped against the air like a drum, sending the group of men flying backward and making the King freeze for a second: Autumn lifted her arms and tilted her head back as she summoned a ball of fire and blew the ceiling off of the castle with ease. The men who were still standing hastily started backed away with terrified eyes, watching the girl as in shock and horror as she lifted her arms and began charging the air above her palms.

Her long brown hair rippled in the electric wind she was generating until she let it loose, sending a writhing bolt of electricity exploded from her fingertips and stretched up into the sky with a crack of thunder; a second later, the lightning seared back down with a roar and hovered above her left hand in a hissing ball of multicolored light, spinning rapidly as sparks flew in every direction. Autumn's hair billowed out with the energy inside her body as her vacant crimson eyes rippled like water in a pond.

Then they flared with a white glow from the pupil outward, obscuring her iris with light.

With a monotonous expression, the brunette gracefully spun around and threw the crackling ball of electricity straight at one of the men with a deafening crack and blinding blue flash. When he gave a loud screech and his limbs blew apart into several different pieces, the other men began to panic and let out shouts of terror.

Watching as they scattered like ducklings, Autumn threw her head back and let loose a scream of rage so powerful that her voice ripped the fabrics of reality. Everything fell silent against the hearing of all living things except for her cry, for the sound of her voice had drowned out all vibrations aside from the ones come from her own body.

Everyone turned to look at the girl when the sound of her echoing voice seemed to distort their senses. Einon let out a soundless cry of rage, but the man clamped a hand to his mouth when he realized his voice was gone. The enraged angel slowly lifted her hands, long hair billowing around her body with the current of power.

Above her right hand, a small ball of iridescent multicolored flame ignited to life above her palm; above her left hand, a ball of water swirled out of the air and condensed into a shimmering orb that radiated a burning multicolored light. The men watched in amazement as she spun around like a dancer and swung the hand holding the water, sending the ball straight at the feet of the soldiers. The moment the orb landed, a massive wall of water exploded out of the ground.

The reverse tsunami stretched magnificently above their heads before Autumn flung her hand back down to the ground—making it smash down around the gathered guards. Sending her icy energy surging into the roaring wave, she froze the men to the ground so they wouldn't be able to move; then she flawlessly spun around and threw the ball of iridescent fire at them.

The flames immediately encircled the soldiers, entrapping them like bugs in a spider web.

Autumn—with a terrifying look of finality on her face—deftly lifted both of her small hands out in front of her with the palms facing down. She held them there for a moment, but then the girl lifted her arms and flung them towards the sky, arching her back with a scream of anger when her hair went flying in the sudden wind that ripped through the King's room. The fire immediately responded to the girl's actions by spiraling up around the king's men and entrapping them in a twister made of pure, iridescent white fire.

Standing on the tips of her toes with her back arched to the sky, Autumn twisted her hands together and forced the fiery prison to fall onto the group of men—and they screeched in agony as the flames spread. Bringing her arms down after a long moment of waiting on her toes with her back arched, she watched with unseeing red eyes as the men writhed and screamed, all of them burning alive under the wrath of an enraged angel. When the last scream finally died away into a gurgling whine, Autumn finally let the fire go and stepped over the burned husks so she could walk over to Einon.

Folding her wings around her body, the small girl stared at the terrified king with cold white eyes.

"I will never kill Bowen," Autumn whispered calmly, voice echoing through room like a gentle breath of wind. "To think that you, a mortal who is merely pretending to be a God, could order me around is pathetic: you will die in the end, even if it means the one who is closest to me perishes as well."

With that, she turned around and walked into the corridor, following the scent of fresh air that was coming from an open window. After following finding the exit she needed to take, Autumn folded her wings around her body and dashed for it. Another crowd of soldiers was chasing after her now, but if some of them tried to block her she would simply cut them down. The glow around her body was beginning to fade, and she wanted to be flying out in the open air.

Tucking her arms ahead of her body, Autumn dove out the window and spread her arms after she went sailing through it, long brown hair fanning out like a satin banner. Spreading her wings as she dove toward the ground below, the small girl flapped like a bird and flew toward the courtyard with shaking limbs: more high stone walls surrounded her and soldiers were beginning to make their way to the yard.

If she didn't get out now, she would be shot down and captured before she could even get away.

Flapping her wings as hard as she could, Autumn propelled herself toward the wall but let out a shriek when her wings suddenly became translucent and began to lose their traction in the air; flailing her arms hysterically as she flipped toward the stone wall, the brunette rapidly summoned a spray of water and froze a set of makeshift picks to her palms. Bracing herself for the impact, she flung her arms out and squeezed her eyes shut as she grabbed at the wall.

Autumn let out a grunt when her body slammed against the battlement, nearly knocking the wind out of her… yet somehow she managed to grab a hold of the stone before she fell. Quickly finding a good grip on the cobblestones, the angelic fugitive scrambled toward the sky, using the frozen spikes protruding from the toe of her shoes and the ice shards in her hands to gain traction. When she finally made it to the top, Autumn pulled herself up with a mighty heave.

Only to find that she was looking right into the startled face of a very young archer.

"KYAAA!" Autumn shrieked, eyes popping open wide when the archer screeched similarly and fumbled for his weapon. The girl was about to pull herself up when she lost her balance and snatched out for the young man's hand, using his body to pull herself back onto the wall. However, he ended up losing his balance because of that and went flying down into the courtyard. He fell with a short scream and a smack on the ground, but Autumn winced when he groaned. Stretching out her hand to the fallen man, the girl sent a shockwave of healing energy down at him and rolled her eyes when he screamed.

After lying still for several moments, huddled up in a pathetic little ball, the boy opened his eyes.

"Huh?" he asked, sitting up and dazedly rubbing his head. "I don't even hurt anymore. Am I really dead?"

"Sorry, but no!" Autumn called, giggling when he jumped in alarm. "I healed you because I did that by _accident._ It would have been pretty pathetic to die from losing your own balance, so I decided to spare you the humiliation. See ya!"

Just as she was about to jump down the other side of the wall, Autumn paused and looked back up at the castle with an unexpected shiver: Einon was standing in his destroyed window, giving her what looked like a murderous glare. The small brunette simply cocked her head and grinned in response, then disappeared over the other side of the wall and into the forest.

 _I told you so..._ she silently sneered at the king.

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Seven: River of Memories  
**

Morning came bright and early for Autumn. She woke up in a soft patch of clovers with a bee tickling her ears: she was no longer the angel with unimaginable powers, just an abnormally small girl who could do certain things with water. However, Autumn groaned when she tried to sit up and decided against moving quickly for a while: her limbs were sore and she felt like she hadn't eaten in weeks, but even worse was the fact that she still had dried blood all over herself.

She didn't care, though: she had to find the others.  
  
For the first time since the death of her real family, she believed that she had finally found a group of people who actually loved her regardless of her problems. Then her thoughts turned to the future and she wondered if she ever would go back. She wondered whether people had noticed her disappearance, but then she wondered whether this world was like Narnia. Maybe she would eventually fall out this world and discover that time in the future hadn't moved at all. Autumn felt her heart lurch when she thought about leaving her new family: it hurt too much to even think about going back into a world where nobody cared, so she shook her head and forced the frightening thoughts out of her mind.  
  
She didn't want to be alone anymore.  
  
Autumn eventually started walking off through thick fields of wheat, trying to keep herself from totally collapsing out of exhaustion and fatigue. When hunger and pain began to take their toll on her body, Autumn's sight began to blur, her stride became wobbly, and she ended up colliding with several different objects. One such obstacle happened to be a large boulder that had been placed in her path by who knows what; the second happened to be a very large male moose, who didn't take too kindly to being head-butted by a small girl like Autumn.  
  
Another was a wooden fence, which made her even more confused.  
  
After what seemed like hours, Autumn finally came out onto a large grassy field and realized that the sun was already setting over the countryside. She felt the cool shadow of the hill on her back as she slowly staggered down the hill. A village lay at the bottom, and she recognized it to be the one she and the others had been to before they'd left her behind. Her yellow eyes slowly fluttered as she heard sounds of alarm erupting from the village.  
  
It wasn't surprising, though: a small, extremely bloody girl wearing strange clothing was walking toward a calm little village like a zombie, and a sight like that would give anyone a fright. She attempted to make her way down the decline, but ended up tripping and rolled downhill like a rag-doll. After several dizzying revolutions, the small girl lay facedown on the grass with her left arm pinned painfully under her own bodyweight.  
  
Autumn weakly tried to crawl to all fours, but her body felt like lead and her arms didn't want to move anymore. Still, despite her helplessness, she struggled to her feet and forced herself to continue trudging on. She had just made it into the village and was earning herself some horrified stares when a loud voice cried out her name. Autumn glanced up and saw a figure with long black hair running out of a nearby building.  
  
Shakily stretching out her hand to the familiar figure, Autumn's vision shifted and her legs buckled; with almost no strength left in her severely deprived body, the small girl slowly fell to her knees amongst the crowd of people that had gathered around her, still holding out her hand to the shifting silhouette. Closing her eyes as her hair billowed around her face like a satin cloud, Autumn limply fell forward and slammed into the ground. Her own body weight pinned her there as several alarmed voices echoed in the darkness of her mind. She could hear multiple people screaming her name, but then…  
  
Nothing.  
  
Her mind had gone dark.  
  
However, after drifting through endless shadows, something cold was pressed against her chest out of nowhere; Autumn soon felt another cold thing stroking her forehead. After several moments of enduring the chilled wetness, the girl let out a small mewl and opened her sleepy yellow eyes. Glancing around with a groggy expression, she noticed that she was lying inside what looked to be in a cabin made of logs: it had a straw roof overhead, and there was a skin-flap over the door that let in a cool breeze from the outside. Judging by the light shining into the room, it was early morning and she was lying on a cot made of cloth and hay.  
  
After blinking several times, Autumn looked down at herself and realized that she was completely naked.  
  
There were also several bloodstained rags lying on the floor beside the cot she was lying, which puzzled her greatly for several moments. Taking another confused look around the cabin, she realized that no one else was here with her, but she heard a great deal of noise coming from outside. After bringing her small hands around to the back of her head and stretching, Autumn saw her backpack and sat up instantly, eyes shining in delight. Climbing off the small cot, the girl hurried over to her bag and started rummaging around inside it for her red dress—only to find that there were several new articles of clothing inside.  
  
With hesitant motions, Autumn pulled out a cream cotton dress and stared at it in amazement: it was just her size, and even though it was incredibly plain, it was cute because of its simplicity. After throwing the dress over her head and slipping on a red jacket since she was feeling chilly, the girl slipped on her sandals and twirled around: she felt kind of pretty.  
  
Fully dressed in her new outfit, Autumn lifted the skin-curtain over the door and stepped out into the crisp morning air. Walking toward a small pond and sitting on the arching bridge that stretched over it, the tiny looked at the murky water in both dismay and disgust: she was dying of thirst, but she wouldn't drink that water in a million years. She stared at her pale reflection in the water before glancing at the reflection of the sky: it was almost exactly like a mirror. Autumn didn't know what to think about what had happened the previous night: she knew that someone had rescued her.  
  
That someone had to be here now.  
  
"You're awake," someone said softly; Autumn's heart instantly skipped a beat, and she quickly turned around to see whether or not she was dreaming. Bowen was standing on the other side of the bridge in simple village clothes, staring at her with reserved amber eyes behind his glasses. Despite the fact that she wanted to run into the man's arms and hug him tightly, Autumn gave him a shrug and continued to stare at the water with a withdrawn expression on her face.  
  
"I'm guessing you're angry with us for leaving you?" Bowen asked, slowly walking over to where she was sitting. Autumn swung her legs back and forth over the side of the wooden bridge, and for a long moment she said nothing in return. When the knight noticed the expression on her face, he scratched his head and seemed to be at a loss for words.  
  
"I don't think angry is the right word to be using," Autumn murmured, not taking her eyes off the water.  
  
"Then, what word would you use?" Bowen questioned.  
  
"Well, I think 'hurt' would be a good choice," Autumn mumbled, sadness heavy in her voice. Even though leaving her behind had been an accident, Bowen couldn't help but feel guilty when he saw the lost expression on her face.  
  
"Autumn, I'm sorry," he sighed, tiredly rubbing his face. "If there's anything I can do to make it up to you, tell me."  
  
That's what she had been waiting for him to say.  
  
When Autumn whirled around, the world seemed to slow down immensely and Bowen's eyes snapped open wide in surprise: the girl's motions had died down so much that he could barely see her moving as she whirled to look at him. Her long brown hair fanned out as the world slowly sped up again, but what shocked the man wasn't the fact that time had done a doozy on him; it was the fact that Autumn's stoic expression had complete shattered for the first time he'd ever seen and she was crying. The teenager actually flung her arms around his neck, burying her face in his collar.  
  
"There is something you can do," Autumn whispered, clutching him tightly with shaking hands. "I want you to promise that you'll never abandon me like that ever again! I want you to love me the same way that I love Kara, Auron, and Draco! I want us to be a family who will stick together through everything that comes our way! I want you to accept me!"  
  
"What on earth are you talking about?" the knight spluttered, awkwardly patting her back since he didn't really know what else to do in this sort of situation. "Why would you want a gruff old man like me to be your second surrogate father, Autumn?"  
  
"Because you're the first person aside from Draco who's ever looked at me like I'm worthwhile," Autumn whispered, closing her eyes as she tried to stop the tears running down her cheeks. "When we first met, you took one look at me and still held out your hand. That was the first time since my family was murdered that someone has shown me any sort of kindness. Now that I remember what it's like to feel cared about, I'm afraid that if I ever do go back home I won't be able to handle being hated anymore. That's why I want you to adopt me, so I won't ever have a reason to leave this world behind!"  
  
For several moments, the knight stared down at Autumn in wordless shock.  
  
"I promise," he finally sighed, looking up at the sky with a frown; then, smirking a bit when she stared up at him in disbelief, he pulled a signet ring out of his pocket and slipped it over her finger. "This is proof that you are my Kin. People who see this ring will know that you are Lord Bowen D'Andesyrius's daughter, the one and only heir to his House."  
  
"Really?" Autumn asked, eyes going wide as she stared at the ring in shock.  
  
"Really," Bowen stated, watching with soft eyes as the girl touched the ring with a loving expression. "However, that also means your training starts tomorrow, so be prepared to meet me right here before dawn to begin it."  
  
"Training?" Autumn asked, blinking a few times in confusion. "What sort of training?"

**TXXXXXT**

"Concentrate, Autumn!" Draco chuckled, swinging his tail from side-to-side in amusement as he watched the small girl spar with Bowen. The angel frowned but determinedly kept her eyes on the knight, watching his every move with wary eyes; every time he moved, she would follow, yellow eyes never leaving his.  
  
Bowen was currently holding a wooden long-sword in his hands: he was circling around the girl, who had chosen to wield a set of dual wooden daggers. Flicking the brim of her sunhat a little further up so she could see a bit better, Autumn held her wooden weapons at the ready. Because Bowen had adopted her the previous day, she'd been forced to take fighting lessons to defend herself since she really didn't know what she was doing when it came to using her ice blades. Most of the time she'd simply been swiping blindly in the hopes that she would hit one of her adversaries.  
  
Bowen had apparently noticed this major flaw in her fighting style.  
  
Autumn saw a sudden shift in the knight's movements and tensed: a normal human wouldn't have been able to detect it unless they'd had a lot of training, but she noticed it pretty easily since she had 'inhuman hyper-senses' as she had taken to calling them. Bowen's wrist twitched and his steps became uneven by the slightest centimeter when his body tensed: Autumn whirled to the side like a dancer when he charged at her, white silken dress fanning out around her body as she parried his blow with the back of her left blade.  
  
A second later, Bowen swung his sword at her face and she did a flexible back-bend, sending the toe of her bare foot straight into his chin. Then she whipped back up and zipped forward in the seconds after he stumbled backwards: Autumn swiped her weapons over her head with the speed of a viper and whacked him on the shoulder twice. However, he caught her off guard when he charged forward a second later.  
  
The brunette instantly dove to the side and rolled back to her feet.  
  
Haha, wow! she thought in amusement, thinking of her favorite video game hero with amused eyes. I did a Link roll!  
  
That one moment of thought cost her dearly: Bowen took advantage of her distraction and swiped his fake sword at her, catching her on the side. Autumn let out a yip when she was knocked over, but the girl rapidly turned the fall into another roll and flipped back onto her feet with a peeved expression. Not allowing herself to get distracted again, she darted forward and whipped her left sword at him, nicking him in the arm. When he tried to spin away, the girl leapt ahead of his escape route and whirled around, successfully whacking his ribs.  
  
"Augh! Ouch!" Bowen exclaimed, rubbing his side in amazement. "Good job, Autumn!"  
  
"I try," the girl giggled, poking her tongue out at him. "Thanks for the praise!"  
  
The two of them had been sparring since dawn, and Autumn had felt extremely lucky that she was a fast learner when it came to certain things. After all, the knight had decided to teach her how to use a proper sword since all she knew how to do was use her powers: without them, she was as helpless as a duck. Autumn wondered how Bowen had changed so suddenly from the bitter man she'd known into the focused one she saw in every day life. He was working so hard in planning their battle, working out strategies for getting into Einon's castle.  
  
Autumn couldn't care less about the strategies; she just wanted to help out with the training. You see, Autumn Fyre had been born in the future and thus had knowledge about things that people in Bowen's time hadn't even invented yet: for example, she knew what materials they needed in order to make dynamite.  
  
Autumn and Bowen took a break around noon since the girl's stomach was growling at her, begging for food and demanding that she feed herself. Shaking her head with a laugh and waving a farewell to Bowen and Draco, the girl summoned her wings and sprinted out of the river, flapping them until she lifted off of the ground and was soaring through the air like Draco had taught her to do. Holding her sunhat against her head so she wouldn't lose it, Autumn flew off toward the village to see if any of the residents had something yummy to munch on.  
  
Many of the villagers had gotten used to her secret, so they didn't stare too much when she did something strange like summoning her wings. After landing in the center of the village, Autumn let her wings dissolve before skipping around from shop to shop, looking for something yummy to eat.  
  
After a while, she found a bakery that was selling some delicious-looking loaves of chewy cinnamon bread.  
  
Eagerly handing the bakery woman a gold coin, Autumn took the loaf she was handed with a gleeful expression and eagerly began to munch on it. Leaving the bakery with her prize, the angel summoned her wings and took off again, looking for a shady place to rest while she ate. However, she could feel the sun's heat even after she'd landed and sat down under the shade of the trees: it made her extremely thirsty.  
  
Once she finished her meal, Autumn got up and started trotting among the trees toward the sound of fresh, cool water. It took her only a few minutes to get to the river, and once she was there she drank the cool liquid for at least five minutes straight. The cold water rippled down her throat and filled her belly, cooling her and quenching her thirst. The second Autumn finished drinking, she turned to walk back but stopped when she realized that she felt overly hot again. She thought about her discomfort for a second, but then she looked from the water to a small cliff just a few meters away.  
  
Grinning in delight, the girl actually got an idea that sounded like a lot of fun.  
  
Not even five minutes later, Autumn went sailing off the cliff in the nude, launching herself into the air like an eagle and diving into the water with a giant splash. The cold water slid over her bare skin and washed out her long hair, refreshing the girl completely and making her feel alive for the first time in hours. After a few moments of swimming underwater, she broke free of the surface and took a deep breath; her abnormally pale body seemed to sparkle like diamonds as she paddled contentedly for a while, constantly jumping in and out of the water with squeaks and squeals of joy. The water splashed and glittered in the afternoon sunlight as she sauntered through it, trying to catch the darting minnows with fits of hysterical laughter: without her knowledge, a huge grin spread across her face and her yellow eyes sparkled.  
  
"I would assume that you are enjoying yourself?" an amused rumble asked from shore; Autumn tripped with a squealing splash at the sound of the unexpected question, but when she clumsily attempted to cover her bare chest, she felt like an idiot when she saw that it was only Draco sitting on the riverbank; the dragon looked content with watching her play.  
  
"Yeah, it's fun!" Autumn called, standing upright once again and cocking her head to the side. "Haven't you ever tried it?"  
  
"I don't think I have," the dragon chuckled. Autumn grinned at him until she saw another fish, one that was much bigger than a minnow: with an excited expression, the small girl let out a squeal of delight and dove after it with a splash, trying to catch it; the sight of her running after the fish had Draco laughing uproariously. "You'll never catch one like that!"  
  
"Yeah, I know, but it's—ooh, ooh, there's another one!" Autumn squealed, happily interrupting herself as another fish darted between her legs. The brown-haired girl romped about in the water, trying in vain to catch some fish but having a lot of fun despite her lack of success. Draco watched her play in the water solemn eyes: she was so careless now… so free and happy to be alive. It was terrible to think that Autumn had actually experienced something so bad that it had smothered this side of her personality under a thick blanket of pain. He preferred seeing this side of Autumn opposed to the quiet side that seemed to be holding back so many unshed tears.  
  
Tears that always slipped through the mask whenever she fell asleep.  
  
"Do you miss your family, Autumn?" Draco impulsively asked; he regretted asking the question the moment she froze and stared out at nothing, almost as though he had triggered something in her mind. After a second of staring off into space, the girl turned to look at him and smiled blankly as water began dripping down her face and hair.  
  
"Why would I miss you?" Autumn asked, yellow eyes shimmering like fire. "You're right here."  
  
"I'm asking if you miss the people from your time," Draco chided, lowering his head. "Do you think you'll ever get back home?"  
  
For a second, he swore he saw a flicker of pain on the girl's face.  
  
"I hope not," Autumn murmured, slowly sinking down in the water. "I don't like it there. I mean, if you knew what had happened to me the day I ended up here, you would know that I couldn't miss it... it just isn't possible any longer."  
  
"Why not explain to me what happened, then?" Draco carefully suggested. "I can't say that I'm not interested."  
  
"Are you sure?" Autumn asked, giving him a hesitant look. "It isn't a nice story."  
  
"I can manage," the dragon stated firmly, lowering his massive head to his forelegs. "I want to know what happened to you."  
  
"Okay, then," the small girl murmured, staring off into space as she let her mind wander back to that day. Taking a deep breath, Autumn Fyre opened her mouth and explained how her classmates had always been cruel to her and how nobody had ever treated her like a normal person except her foster sister. Then she explained how her adoptive parents had been murdered before telling the dragon about how she and her sister fled the scene. She told him why she'd lost control of her powers, explaining how the strange energy wave must have sent her to the past because of her wish.  
  
She told him about everything that had happened, from start to finish.  
  
"…and I'm sure that's how I got here," Autumn finished, staring at the ground with a shrug. For a long moment, Draco couldn't do anything accept stare at her with enormous eyes as she calmly concluded the events that had led to her arrival in the past. She had gone through so much pain in just one particular day that the dragon actually felt sick to his stomach: to think that she could even talk about something so awful with a such a calm demeanor made him realize that she was used to this kind of treatment... and it also meant that she had been through worse experiences.  
  
Things that were most likely even more terrible than what he'd just heard.  
  
"It amazes me how you can talk about something like that as though it doesn't bother you," Draco finally growled, voice coming out several octaves lower than usual; Autumn blinked and looked up at him in confusion for a moment.  
  
"Well, actually it does bother me... just not as much as other things do," Autumn admitted, shrugging a little as she stared at the crystalline water. "I'm better at hiding my feelings than most people are because that's what you're supposed to do when you're surrounded by enemies. It's not like I'm brave or anything; really, I'm terrified of almost everything I see, but if I panic… I'll only be making things worse. I decided a long time ago that I would just go with the flow and roll with the punches people threw at me, but not so much that I turn into a puppet."  
  
"You're have an incredibly strong will," Draco muttered, amazed by how much thought Autumn had put into this topic.  
  
"No, I'm just insanely good at zoning out when bad things are happening to me," Autumn corrected, standing up from the water and stretching her slender muscles with a yawn. After braiding back her hair to keep it from sticking to her body, Autumn waded out of the water and held out her hand to the dragon; he slowly stretched out his foreleg and wrapped his claws around her hand, helping her onto the bank and watching as she smiled at him. "I'm hungry. I think I'll go buy some more of that cinnamon bread with Bowen's stash money. I'll see you later, Pops! Have some fun while I'm gone!"  
  
"Pops?" Draco wondered, cocking his head and blinking in confusion after she left.

**TXXXXXT**

A few days later, the surrounding countryside was hit by a freak storm.  
  
Rain pounded down through the trees as Autumn padded calmly through them, reading the book that Kara had given her while she absently used her wings as a shield from the storm. She had been outside for a few hours before it had started to rain, but even though feathers were heavy from taking the brunt of the elements, she didn't seem to care and continued reading at a leisurely pace. Autumn's makeshift sandals barely made a sound on the damp forest path as she continued to walk back to the village.  
  
She stopped to nibble on a small berry bush before continuing, but that was the only detour she made.  
  
For once, everything was calm... and she owed that fact to the weather since rain always sent her into a state of mellowness. She rather liked the feeling since she was usually a hyperactive scaredy-cat. Contentedly flipping a page as she made her way back to the river she'd been splashing in the other day, she thought about her new family for a few moments: they had three days until the rebellion truly began, and everyone was getting agitated.  
  
Kara had either been staring off into space or watching Bowen teach the villagers; the man was too wrapped up in his teaching to talk much, even when they practiced fighting each other; and Draco was usually flying around somewhere on his own, which mean that Autumn was usually left to fend for herself.  
  
The angel was slowly beginning to realize that she was growing rather anxious about the training, and the ominous cloud the rebellion had cast over her new family made her feel uneasy. She herself was a little afraid, but really it was only because she didn't want to lose her friends in a needless fight. If they died because of this, she would be all alone once again but worse off than before: she would be trapped in a medieval world with no idea on how to survive alone. Shaking her head clear and making her ponytail bob, she flapped water out of her wings and started to walk in a different direction.  
  
It's not like I don't care what happens to me, I'm just not afraid for myself, Autumn mentally sighed, shaking her head again; she guessed this kind of feeling was an instinct since she was a family girl deep down: she hated being alone because it drove her crazy. Sometimes she needed to be alone, but not for long periods of time and especially not in strange places.  
  
When a soft, cold breeze ruffled her brown hair and she realized that the rain was really beginning to come down, Autumn glanced up from the pages of her book and closed it: she had to focus on where she was going since walking was becoming hazardous due to the mud. The small girl slipped every now and then, but somehow she managed to keep her clothes clean. However, when she heard a voice on the air and realized that Bowen was calling her back to the village, Autumn sighed to herself and hastened toward the sound, trying not to slip and fall in the mud as she ran through the rain. Just as she was passing by a particularly steep cliff, a young boy jumped out from behind a tree and pressed a large sword against her throat.  
  
"Don't make a sound, otherwise I'll slit you open," he hissed when her yellow eyes went round. "I want an answer: where is my older brother and why isn't he at home with my family right now? Think wisely before you answer the question, because it could determine whether or not I slit your throat and gut you like a fish... you have ten seconds."  
  
"E-excuse me?" Autumn squeaked, trying to process the situation she had just walked into; with shaking a hand, she slowly pushed the blade away from her neck. "First of all, who the heck are you and how should I know where your brother is? Second of all, why the heck are you carrying a sword that big when it's obviously pouring buckets? And third, why are you asking me all of this when I've never seen you before in my life?"  
  
"Because you killed my big brother, Azan!" the adolescent boy screamed, green eyes flashing as his face twisted with hate. "How can you not remember him?! You murdered him just outside of our village and turned him into ashes! All that was left of him was ashes!"  
  
"Ashes?" Autumn whispered, feeling her entire body prickle with a horrible icy feeling. "Wait, are you saying that the psychotic archer near Yorkshire Village was your brother? The one who kept calling me a witch and tried to kill me several times in a row?"  
  
"Yes," the boy spat, shakily lifting the blade as tears filled his eyes. "S-so, give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you."  
  
"Okay, I'll give you all the reasons why you shouldn't kill me: first of all, your older brother tried to kill me twice when I did nothing wrong, and then he tried to rape me! I told him to leave me alone multiple times without result, and when he attacked me like a maniac on our way into the village, there was no other time for me to react!" Autumn choked out, face twisting up in shock and disbelief that the person in front of her was doing this. "I had no other choice! It was self defense!"  
  
"Why did you have to kill Azan?!" the boy angrily sobbed, lifting the sword and swiping blindly. "Why did you have to kill him?!"  
  
"Stop it!" Autumn squeaked, ducking under the boy's clumsy swings with wide eyes; when he ignored her command and continued to flail around with the sword, the girl ducked under one of his blows and disarmed him. He instantly tried to hit her in the face with an angry shout, but she merely took the blow and continued to move forward. However, the boy froze when she flung her arms around his torso and pulled him into a hug: he stared over her shoulder with wide, confused eyes.  
  
"What are you doing?" he shouted, struggling to get free with little result. "Let go of me!"  
  
"I'm so sorry," she whispered, making him go still. "I really am… I know how much it hurts to lose a family member, and it's my fault that your brother is gone. I'm sorry for doing this to you… and I promise, I'll do whatever I can to make it up, but this needs to stop! Don't do this! Please, tell me what I can do to make this easier on you!"  
  
"What you can do is defend yourself again!" the boy snapped, drawing a dagger from his belt and plunging it backwards.  
  
The blade went clean into her stomach.  
  
"OW!" Autumn squeaked, leaping away and holding her stomach as she used the falling rain to form a water-shield; she froze it before he could stab her again and the dagger smacked against the ice with a deafening clang. When he moved around the ice barrier, the boy tried to stab her again and she leapt backwards, barely managing to dodge the razor edge of his knife as it whipped past her face; her ribbon was sliced out of its hold as she dodged, and her water-soaked hair came tumbling down around her shoulders. The tresses looked black because of the rain, but she ignored the weight of her hair as she dodged his blows and struggled not to slip in the mud.  
  
However, when Autumn leapt back and the boy suddenly halted, she froze as well when his eyes widened.  
  
"Why isn't it working?" he whispered, touching his forehead. "This is the same thing my big brother did, and he got killed by your fire because he wouldn't stop attacking you, so... why? Why aren't you killing me like you killed him? WHY?! WHY HIM AND NOT ME!"  
  
"Shut up and stop attacking me right now!" Autumn cried, clutching her stomach with shaking hands as she backed away. "I didn't want to kill your brother, you moron! I never did! If I could go back in time, I would do everything over again and bring him back! I didn't want to, I swear! It was self-defense!"  
  
The boy looked at her for a moment, but then his crystal blue eyes flicked to the ground and went wide.  
  
"Stop!" he cried, hurrying forward with an outstretched hand. "Look out!"  
  
"What sort of trick are you trying to pull n—eeeeEEEEYAAAAAH!" Autumn's question devolved into a startled squeak when the muddy earth suddenly caved in beneath her. Her water-soaked wings dissolved in a fountain of liquid as her footing vanished: her long hair began to fan around her small body as the world began to blur, stunning silence dominating the girl's mind.  
  
Autumn Fyre stared at the stormy grey sky with stunned golden eyes—hand outstretched to where she had just been standing just a second before. The image of her half-open book falling onto the muddy cliff above and the boy stretching out his hand with a horrified expression was the last thing she remembered before her body slammed into the ground. Autumn saw an explosion of stars when her head hit the dirt—but not even two seconds after she landed, a rock the size of a basketball smashed into her chest and crushed her into the muddy ground. Autumn struggled to move, but her leg and back was bursting with pain: she couldn't sit up because of her ribs and she couldn't scream for help because it hurt too much.  
  
That's when she knew that no one would ever find her and promptly fainted.


	9. Chapter 9

  
**Chapter Eight: Home**  


"Where could she be?" Bowen wondered aloud, beginning to feel agitated as he stared into the forest.

However, a short and abrupt shriek reached his ears and he froze: it had been faint, but whoever had made the sound had been startled by something. Bowen went white as a horrible feeling stabbed his gut, and he ran into the forest. The earth was slippery underfoot, but he kept his balance and continued to sprint amongst the dark branches and foliage.

He began to see signs that someone had recently passed through just moments before, so the knight followed the footsteps and skid marks until he came to a small hollow and a high cliff. The mud wasn't thick, but it _was_ slippery and he couldn't get a proper foothold. Bowen nearly went sliding down the slope when the ground gave away, but he managed to grab onto a thick branch that allowed him to keep his balance. However, pinned at the very bottom of the ravine by a medium-sized boulder was Autumn Fyre: Bowen's gut twisted and he carefully picked his way down the slope.

"Autumn, can you hear me?!" he shouted, kneeling next to her and looked at her pale face. Her glazed eyes opened to slits, showing her golden irises for about a second before her head went limp again: he could hear her whimpering faintly, and the sound had him worried. After removing the boulder and checking her over, he realized that she only seemed to be injured in her right leg; when he tried pressing against it, her reaction was instantaneous.

"OW! It hurts! It hurts! It hurts! It hurts! It hurts!" Autumn wailed breathlessly, writhing on the ground. "Make it stop!"

"Hang on, honey, I'll get you out of here," Bowen soothed, clumsily making his way back up the ridge and sprinting back to the village. Autumn's consciousness was fading rapidly, and her body was shivering from the cold. She'd heard a voice for a few moments and then there was nothing but the patter of the rain on her ears. The girl tried to move again, but pain shot up her leg and she fell back onto her right side with a croak. Autumn had her right leg stretched out at a strange angle with her body twisted unpleasantly due to the way she had fallen.

Soon she couldn't see the stalk of grass in front of her face, the green and brown plant blurring into itself. However, the wind suddenly changed and she could hear a loud sound over the rain... something that made her awareness prick slowly back to being alert. A dark shape descended from the cloud cover, causing her to cringe, but the shape blotted out the light and made it dark, allowing her to close her weary eyes and submit to the shadows. Before she realized what was happening, the world dissolved and she was swept into darkness before spiraling back up a second later.

Only now, somehow, she had become warm and dry.

Autumn couldn't move, but she knew she was alive because of the aching pain in her right leg. The girl knew that, somehow, she had ended up lying on something soft but slightly scratchy. The world didn't make sense anymore, not when she thought of the strange feeling in her leg: it didn't compute to her that she was healing herself.

However, right now she only could feel the tingling in her limb.

Autumn cracked open one heavy eyelid and immediately shut it again, regretting her idea to leave the peace of that dark place just yet since it hurt her head so much. However, no matter how much someone wanted to keep dreaming, that person would have to wake up sometime and face reality. She opened her eyes and squinted as the light flooded into her pupils; she groaned with frustration and tried to sit up, but the girl was unable to move for another few minutes.

Autumn looked down at her leg as a flare of warmth slid up and down it's length: she could only see part of it, but the girl could feel the whole process of her healing now. It was almost done: she could feel movement returning to her toes and feeling was coming back. Autumn turned her head with a wince and saw a figure sitting on the ground, arms folded across his chest and his legs stretched out: his head was tilted to the side and his mouth was hanging open.

After a few more minutes, Autumn decided it was okay to try and move again so she clenched her fists and sat upright; a twinge in her gut signaled she was still hurt, but she figured it would be gone soon so she dismissed it. Swinging her left leg over the side of the mattress, Autumn tried to move her other leg and discovered that it protested only a little bit. A sharp stab of pain went through it, so she wrapped her hands around the limb and eased it onto the ground.

Wincing as another twinge hit her, Autumn bit her lip and got up, leaning on her left leg. She hobbled over to where Bowen was asleep and knelt on the ground beside him, giggling quietly to herself: his long black hair was flowing down his back in a feminine way, and she smiled devilishly as an idea popped into her head. A few minutes later she had his hair nicely styled into seven different little braids with a white-cream cloth woven into the strands.

Covering her mouth, Autumn couldn't help but laugh: he looked so… so… _girly._

Not able to help herself, the girl burst into a hysterical fit of laughter and rolled around on the floor, being extremely careful not to hurt her leg in the process. The knight's eyes snapped open wide and he leapt to his feet to see Autumn writhing on the ground: he gave her a shocked look and a questioning glare, both at the same time.

"Oh, my God! You should see your face with your hair like that!" Autumn howled, clutching at her aching sides when her stomach cramped up from laughing so hard. The statements earned her another inquiring glance and he picked up his sword, turning it so he could see his reflection. At the sight of his new makeover, Bowen let out a hysterical scream of and threw the sword across the room with a loud clang. Eyes wide, the man frantically put his hands to his head to make sure that what he'd seen wasn't a trick of the light, but sure enough there were braids all over his hair.

"Autumn!" the man hollered, spluttering in shock. "What... what did you _do_ to me?!"

"I didn't do anything wrong!" Autumn giggled, biting her bottom lip. "All I did was make you look _pretty_! _"_

"I swear I heard voices in the cabin," a deep voice suddenly rumbled from outside. "I wasn't imagining things."

"Hey, Bowen, is Autumn awake?" Kara called, pulling back the hide flap that served as the door. "I thought I he— _eek!"_

"What's wrong?" Draco asked in confusion, sticking his head inside the flap when Kara choked on her words and pressed a shocked hand against her mouth, green eyes round; when the dragon saw the knight's disgruntled expression and 'girlified' hair, he let out a snort and hooted with laughter for several minutes. "Interesting hairstyle choice, Bowen! It suits you!"

"How can you sit there and laugh?!" Bowen raged at all three of them. "I have been utterly humiliated!"

"That's why we're laughing!" Autumn chimed in, narrowly avoiding a punch from Bowen. "Oh, noooo, _she's_ going to try and hit me even though I'm still getting over a broken leg! Someone, help me, help me!"

Around midday, Autumn was feeling well enough to start helping out with things again, so she ended up walking from house to house in the village carrying an armful of arrows to people. Bowen tried to get her to stay back at the hut and have her rest until he was sure she was fine, but Autumn had refused and limped off to help.

After she padded to where they were gathering the arrows and weapons for the next day, the small girl checked to make sure she hadn't dropped anything before depositing them in a great big pile. Bowen wasn't in sight, which meant that he was probably training with Kara. She had to giggle since those two had grown closer since they'd met. The girl dropped the weapons into the pile and stretched her back before turning around.

Sshe noticed saw that Draco was having a drink by the pond, so she bounced over.

"Hi, Pops!" Autumn chirped at the dragon; he looked over at her and grinned, swishing his tail in greeting.

"Hello, Little One," Draco rumbled, turning his head back to the pond and drinking more of it.

"Ugh… ew, I don't know how you can drink that stuff," she commented, looking at the murky brown water as though it were some sort of mysterious life form. After a moment, she sat on a patch of dry grass and picked up a stick, poking it into the water and splashing around with it. "It looks all greasy… kind of like something's been swimming around in it."

"It's just an acquired taste, I expect," Draco said calmly, bending his head for another drink.

Suddenly he tensed, and Autumn immediately froze as a warning froze her gut with ice. In an instant, the small girl was on her feet and had withdrawn her frozen blades as she stared up at the hill, where a small forest concealed the other side. Autumn instantly threw her head back and let out an incredibly loud banshee screech that caused birds to take flight; her voice carried over the hills and spooked a burly chestnut horse into rearing back with a whinny.

There was a man who had been hiding in the forest.

Draco growled and let out a roar, spreading his wings wide and lashing his tail angrily. Autumn let her own wings explode into existence as well, spreading them wide and letting out a threatening war cry as she summoned a lightning bolt from the heavens and let it hover above her hand. The villagers, who still had yet to grow accustomed to the dragon and immortal youth among them, stopped their lessons to stare at the two winged beings. The horse freaked and the rider tried to regain control of the stricken animal, but then he slammed his heels into its flanks and rode off.

"Shit!" Autumn hissed, face twisting up in dismay: they had been discovered, and worse—it had been by one of her least favorite people, Brock D'Ancanto. Besides the fact that she'd decided to use a particularly unpleasant word to describe her opinion on the situation, Autumn felt more than she was saying. Really, much more: a sudden sense of dread was growing inside her chest, freezing her insides one second and burning them the next. Everyone else seemed to go into a panicked frenzy when they realized who had just ridden off into the forest.

Villagers ran about screaming and shouting.

"They've seen us!" one woman wailed as they all scattered from the panic. "They know! Run for your lives!"

"BE QUIET!" Draco roared, making everyone freeze; Autumn, who hadn't moved from her spot, slowly drained of color as she looked up at his determined expression. She recognized the expression on the dragon's face from the movie, and she suddenly felt sick when she remembered that the battle at Einon's castle was drawing frighteningly near.

"I can't believe it's already time for the epic speech," Autumn whispered, brown hair twisting in the wind as her fragile face took on a horrified expression. "If I can't do something to stop this, Draco will really die! I have to do something!"

**TXXXXXT**

"I need more men!" Brock shouted Felton, who was standing in front of a small wooden table while Einon paced calmly off to their right— probably ignoring the quarrel between the two men.

"Waste of money—it's just a few peasants waving pitchforks!" Felton snapped, rubbing his weasel-like face with an extremely irritated sound. "Plus, they're all on your land, so you're too busy in your 'old age' to keep control of them!"

"Sheath your tongue and heed my words, you damned idiot," Brock snarled angrily, grabbing the smaller man by the collar and reveling in the way he locked up; in comparison to Felton's more angular features, Brock was a mountain made of nothing but muscle. In short, he was a burly man with a grip as firm as steel. "They have a dragon _and_ a succubus!"

"Yes, I know!" Felton snapped, glaring at him before turning up his long, pointed nose. "I have seen both of them on several occasions, but that doesn't change the fact that they are nothing but whiny little peasants!"

"You ignorant little coward!" Brock roared; Einon chose that moment to come between them.

"I'm just saying that any one of us is worth a hundred of them," Felton groveled, lifting his hands and looking around the group of noblemen who had gathered around them: they were other lords who kept the small towns in check for the king, and they weren't sure what to do about this spectacle.

Einon looked at Felton, a mocking smile playing on his lips,

"My brave Felton, an army all to himself," the King said calmly, hand moving up to the back of the man's neck as if to be friendly when the others around the table murmured to themselves.

"Well… I, uh…" the man didn't seem to know what to say about the king's statement; suddenly, Einon shoved Felton down so he was face-planted into the table they were all standing around.

"I know the man who leads them and I will not underestimate him!" the king roared into Felton's ear, and the cowardly man had to suppress the need to reach up and pull the hand away. "I will _not_ underestimate _him,_ the _demon, or_ the _dragon!"_

"Don't be afraid of the dragon, my son," a soft, gentle voice stated from the archway.

When Einon turned to see who had spoken, he saw that his mother was calmly approaching him with the solemn green eyes of a woman who had seen too much tragedy. The skirt of the woman's gold and white dress was swept in the gentle wind as she locked eyes with her son, the white veil covering her face flowing weightlessly in the afternoon breeze. Startled by the unusual arrival of the queen, the lords gave the woman a quick bow.

Einon, however, merely clenched the hand on Felton's head.

"I'm afraid of nothing! Do you understand?!" he roared, bashing Felton's head into the table. Einon grimaced and slammed Felton's head into the table a second time before he finally let go and followed his mother. She gently took his hand in her own and led him through another archway, bringing him before five men. Three of the men had the most peculiar hats; horns were protruding from their helmets, with several more sticking out of their armor.

"A mother's gift to her son," Aislinn stated happily. "Finest to be had!"

Einon cocked his head to the side with disinterest.

"The finest what?" he muttered grouchily, turning his scrutinizing gaze on his mother; for a split second, Aislinn's eyes flashed with sorrow before her expression changed to being much too pleased with herself.

"Dragon Slayers…"

**TXXXXXT**

The sun was just beginning to set when Autumn, Bowen, and Draco climbed the hill behind the village.

When they made it to the top, she could see the glinting lights of each fire around the town, both inside the houses and outside in the open air. The small girl plodded along with Bowen on her left while Draco padded on her right, tail swishing calmly above the tall grass. Autumn stared at the beautiful colors in sky as the sun slowly sank below the horizon, feeling completely at peace as she clasped her foster father's hand and rested her palm on Draco's scaly side. The moment all three of them were connected, a fierce wind rushed over the hill and swept over them: Autumn's long hair was tossed back in a cloud of molten bronze as the warm breeze caressed her body, ruffling her tattered school skirt and tugging on her faded sleeves.

The three of them were a family.

"I have a question that I need to know the answer to," Autumn murmured softly. "Answer this honestly, please: what would the two of you… _do..._ if something bad ever happened to me and I ended up dying somehow? How would you feel?"

"What brought this on?" Bowen snorted in amusement. "Don't tell me you're afraid."

"No, I'm not scared," Autumn murmured gently, closing her eyes as the wind slowly began to die down. "I just wanted to know what your reactions would be if my life were to vanish from this world. I was curious since you both feel like family."

"I see," Bowen muttered, brow furrowing in confusion; obviously, he didn't believe her excuse for wanting to know.

"I would most likely cry," Draco proffered sheepishly, glaring at Bowen when he snorted in amusement. "Oh, come now, you crinkly old man! You can't very well say that you wouldn't even shed a tear over Autumn, can you?"

That had Bowen in a rut.

"I don't know what I would do if you ever died," the knight answered honestly; without a moment's hesitation, Autumn slowly walked forward and turned to look at the two of them with torn golden eyes. Both Bowen and Draco instantly realized that something was wrong, and the look on her face said that she was in a great deal of emotional pain.

"I need you both to promise me something," Autumn choked out, clenching her fists, "and I need to make a few things clear to you about who I am and where I come from. As you know, I come from the future… but there are things you don't understand about my world. In the future, people have belongings called televisions and they use them to view… well, beautiful creations that people in _this_ time-frame would call ' _plays'._ They can do this over and over again without actually being in the room with the same people. I know what's going to happen to us, and I've known it from the very start… because in my time, everything we've gone through together has already been documented in a movie called Dragon Heart. The melody I was humming the night after we first met was the music that echoes throughout the entire story."

For several moments, the knight and dragon simply stared at her. Then the unexpected happened: they both started howling with uncontrollable fits of laughter. Draco fell over on his side and heaved for air due to the force of his mirth, and Bowen doubled over with a slap against his knee, laughing his ass off.

"Th-that's all you needed to tell us?" the knight gasped, choking with laughter. "I thought it was something serious."

"You don't know how your story ends," Autumn whispered, expression becoming twisted with so much pain that the two of them shut up and stared at her in concern. "I won't tell you anything because I'm afraid of what might happen if I do, but I want you both to promise me that when all's said and done… you won't let the outcome of the future break you."

"This doesn't sound like a story with a happy ending," Draco suddenly noted, all humor gone.

"It's not," Autumn muttered, and a chilling silence descended upon them as another gust of wind tossed her hair around.

"Have you thought beyond tomorrow?" Draco asked the knight, trying to change the subject.

"Unlike my daughter, it's hard for me to see that far into the future," Bowen sighed, not noticing how the small girl stiffened and stared at him with in shock; in the light of the setting sun, her form suddenly took on a radiant appearance and she felt as though the pieces of her shattered heart were slowly coming together in a warm mesh.

"Say it again," Autumn demanded, golden eyes round and fervent. "Please, say it again…"

"I beg your pardon?" Bowen snorted, doing a double-take. "Say what again?"

"You called me your daughter," Autumn stated, shoulders shaking violently. "I'm begging you, Bowen, say it again so I know I'm really not dreaming right now! Please… say it again…"

"No," he stated smugly, but before her expression could break he added, "at least, not unless you call me Father."

"F…" Autumn choked, clutching at her chest as a wonderful throb came from her heart. "Father, say it again!"

"I love you, Autumn," Bowen sighed, shocking her to the core. "I love you as much as any father _can_ love his daughter."

Face twisting up with an urge to cry, Autumn's shoulders tensed with love as flashbacks of all the pain she'd ever endured came rushing back. As she took that first step toward the man who had become her world, Autumn's vision blurred with tears. All of the painful things she'd ever been through, all of the people who had ever abused her, all of the hatred that had been directed at her—none of it mattered the moment Bowen wrapped his arms around her. The man's flowing robes enveloped her when she clung to him and started shaking, but he smirked and gently patted her back.

"Look at the camp, Bowen," Draco commanded, glancing at the man. "What do you see? What do you hear?"

"Hope," the knight quietly replied, gazing at the setting sun as it finally disappeared.

"Exactly!" Draco happily rumbled. "Down there you have life, songs, and courage! You have everything you'll ever need."

When Bowen glanced up at Draco, he noticed that the dragon seemed almost sad.

"And now… so do I," Autumn whispered, sniffling as she broke away from Bowen and waked over to the dragon.

Gently wrapping her arms around Draco's scaly neck, Autumn gave him a hug before pulling away and staring at the sky with eyes that sparkled in the twilight: the stars were just beginning to wink into existence, twinkling like a promise that everything would be okay. In that moment, something began to happen to the shattered remains of Autumn's heart: she put a hand to her chest and smiled at the twinkling lights in the sky, letting the tears come forth as her aching soul once again became whole. After so many years of being unloved by humanity, she had finally been accepted.

"I'm finally home," she whispered, closing her eyes as a falling star shot across the sky.


	10. Chapter 10

** Chapter Nine: Battle of Blood   
**

"Autumn!" a woman called, shaking her shoulder gently. "Autumn, get up! It's dawn!"

"Go away," the small girl groaned, covering her head with her pillow and motioning for them to go bother someone else with a limp hand. The shaking ceased for about a second before it started again, more violently this time. Autumn weakly smacked at the hand that was shaking her body, refusing to open her eyes and greet the early morning. There was a low grumbling from the person who had been trying to wake her up, and a different voice spoke up from a little farther away.

_Molly's actually gonna let me sleep in for once?_ Autumn groggily wondered, slowly rolling over onto her back and sprawling out in a gentle doze. The girl could see calming blue-gray light behind her eyelids; it was still rather dim so she guessed that it was very early in the morning. _I wonder if she made sausages for breakfast today? She's always more lenient during the days that she decides to make a big breakfast, and she always acts nicer to me for some reason... is it because there's another social worker coming to ask if I'm happy today? That idiot… she should already know I'm going to say no. No... wait, Molly is my old foster mother. I already got taken away from her, and now I'm living with the Mizuki family... that's probably why._

"No choice I guess," another voice sighed; a questioning thought pricked at Autumn's mind at the sound of it, warning her that something wasn't quite right, but she dimly brushed it aside and began to fall asleep again. However, before sleep could lay its soothing fingers on her mind, she was suddenly drenched with cold water. With a shriek, Autumn bolted out of bed in nothing but her underwear and scrambled to escape the cold.

"Kyaaaaaaa! It's cold!" Autumn wailed, dancing around in as she tried to find a warm towel. "Who the hell just did that to me?! I swear, whoever just dumped that bucket of water on my head had better apologize! Otherwise I'm gonna rip your throat out, string it up on a stick, and go fishing with it in the river after I murder you! Cold, cold, cold!"

Bowen, who had been standing over her bed with the empty bucket, immediately tossed it over his shoulder and stared at the ceiling with an innocent expression on his face. Autumn, who had stopped dancing around in an attempt to get warm and was now shivering stoically, glared at the man as a reluctant grin struggled to tug her lips into a smile.

"Morning," the man snickered, turning around when he saw that Autumn was still in her tattered underwear.

"I guess I can hold off on the fishing plan," Autumn sighed, rolling her eyes as her anger wore off. "Morning, Bowen."

"I thought we agreed that you would call me 'father' from now on?" the man snorted, cocking an eyebrow. For a moment, Autumn simply blinked at him in shock, but then a huge grin split her face and she laughed exuberantly. Even though she was still shivering violently, the girl doubled over and howled in joyous glee.

"I-I thought that was a one-time thing," she gasped, looking up at him with that same happy grin. "I've officially decided that you just made my day, _Father,_ so I'll forgive you for throwing cold water on me while I was trying to sleep."

"How's your leg?" Bowen asked with a small flicker of concern lacing his tone. "Is it hurting at all today?"

"Its fine," Autumn murmured, glancing down at her limb with a small grin. "It's a little sore, but I'm good to go!"

"Are you sure?" Kara asked, coming into the hut with a dry towel and her newly washed uniform. "You broke it Autumn."

"I'm alright! I heal quicker than other people," Autumn sighed, taking the towel and using it to dry her hair. "Besides, it was my own clumsiness that got me in that position in the first place, so it's _my_ responsibility to avoid complaining."

"If you're certain, I wont speak another word about it," Bowen warned, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "All right?"

"I _am_ certain," Autumn stated, and with a flick of her hand she signaled for them to leave so she could change. Once she was clothed and her hair had been tied back into a lazy-girl ponytail, Autumn padded from the hut and stretched her arms with a yawn. The sky was overcast again, and a thin line of mist was just retreating to the far edges of the fields: she figured it must have rained the night before, since the muddy roads were all riddled with puddles and deep runoff lines. The ground was soft and spongy under the soles of her shoes, and her footsteps left deep impressions in the mud.

_It looks like it's going to be a cold, wet battle,_ Autumn thought, groaning inwardly as she thought about getting all muddy again so soon. Off in the distance she could see Draco circling above the forest, waiting for their plans to be put in action. Autumn twitched in alarm when she heard footsteps approaching from behind, but the moment she turned around with a rant about not scaring people on the tip already of her tongue, a feeling of icy dread swept through her.

"No way," Autumn whispered, shoulders instantly starting to shake as her pupils dilated. "There's no way! You're not real!"

"Autumn, I can only stay for a moment," Anna whispered, taking a step forward. "You need to listen to me."

"Why are you even here?!" Autumn shrieked, taking a step back as she bristled with anger. _"Your_ stupid decisions are the reasons why our family completely broke apart! All of the suffering I had to go through happened because of you!"

"I'm _not_ here, Autumn," Anna stated simply, stretching out an arm to put a hand on her shoulder; however, her limb passed right through Autumn's body, sending an unpleasant prickle running down her spine. "As you can see, only an image of myself can be projected through time and space. I need to tell you something important, so hear me out."

"What the hell do you want from me?" the brunette snapped, rubbing her arms to get rid of the goosebumps.

"To put it simply, you've done something extremely dangerous: I'm using my powers to send a message to you since, apparently, you no longer exist in our present time," Annabelle explained, causing Autumn's eyes to widen. "Because we're biological siblings, I was able to feel it when you lost total control of your powers. However, you don't know what's going on in the future due to your actions here in the past: the smallest thing there could change our future. For example, you've already altered certain points in mankind's history, and if you're not careful you could end up changing the outcome of life in general. If you change the past too drastically, the future will be affected in a negative way."

"What are you saying?" Autumn hissed, narrowing her eyes as her sister's image flickered.

"You have to let Draco die, otherwise people will know about our race in the future and they'll wipe us out completely," Anna croaked out, face twisting in pain as she held up a video case; Autumn glanced at it with an unimpressed expression, but then she realized that it was the cover for Dragon Heart and twitched in alarm. "Because of you, the world I live in has already changed to alter humanity's awareness. If you don't let Draco die, you'll cease to exist as a living being and your memories will amount to nothing but this movie, simply because humanity will wipe out our race when they discover that some angels are actually _born_ on earth."

"What do you mean?" Autumn hesitantly demanded, shivering violently as her eyes widened.

"Look at the case," Anna hissed, closing her eyes as she tried to focus her powers. "I don't have much time left, so look at it!"

After taking a quick glance, she saw that it had changed, and by no means a little bit. Instead of the expected dragon being silhouetted against a sunset, there was an image of Einon and Bowen locked in a fierce battle while an enlarged scaly claw held a glowing yellow heart above their forms. And right below the two men was a full-color portrait of _her,_ staring out at the world with sparkling yellow eyes that held a vast amount of pain. The artist had drawn tears that were streaming from her eyes like liquid diamonds, but at the bottom of the cover were several quotes by famous critiques that caught her attention... and they caught her attention in a very bad way.

_'This movie was so heart wrenching that it brought tears to my eyes,' Bruce Willis quotes to the New York Times. 'The thought of such a sweet girl being oppressed by humanity to such a degree... it would make any man's heart sick, and I cheered right along with the rest of the crowd in the theatre when…'_

_'It combines an interesting genre of modern realism and old-fashioned fantasy' Jennifer Lopez states. 'I thought I would end up being bored by this movie at first, but the storyline and the main lead made an incredible tale. If Autumn Fyre were a real girl, I don't think I would be able to resist hugging her after seeing some of the things she's been through. Oh, and the scene where those horrid people killed her foster sister was absolutely horrific. Anyway, I still think that…'_

Autumn abruptly noticed that the rest of the writing seemed blurry and appeared to shift continuously, almost as though it wasn't really substantial. Moving onto the other quotes, the girl was increasingly horrified by what she read: all of the other comments had the same problem of shifting insubstantially about half-way through. When she motioned for her sister to turn the cover over, Autumn was stunned: not only had the front of the cover changed, the back had as well.

In reality, the entire nature of the story had changed from Bowen, Draco, and Kara being the main characters to her being the leading star. After reading over the back of cover, she realized with horror that everything she'd done so far was sitting right there in the span of a paragraph—and not only that, there were pictures of a strange-looking girl wearing a long brown wig. The girl was wearing her school uniform and holding up a fake-looking set of frozen blades.

With a jolt, she realized it was a teenage actress who was portraying her. In several other places on that cover, there were images of her in different positions: one of her crying alone in the woods, one of her being kidnapped by Einon, and one from the night before: standing in front of the sunset with Draco and Bowen. After a moment of staring at the case in sheer horror, Autumn's eyes widened and she fumbled for her I-pod. Flicking through her playlist until she reached the song she was looking for, Autumn nearly fainted when she heard that the theme for Dragon Heart had changed slightly.

"Will this ever go back to normal?" Autumn whispered, shaking with fright.

"Unfortunately, I have no clue," Anna groaned, rubbing her aquamarine eyes as her image flickered again. "I don't believe that people will make a connection to you being the actual person in the movie if it _doesn't_ change, though: knowing how stupid human beings are, the most they'll comprehend is that you were named after the lead character, not that you were actually the girl who lived the story. Regardless… this could still very well cause a time distortion, but maybe I'm overreacting; for all I know, you could end up coming back and landing in the exact moment you left off from, or better yet, the day before it happened. Still… who really knows? I mean, this is time itself we're talking about, here…"

"Then I'm not coming back," Autumn exclaimed, ignoring how her older sister's eyes went wide. "I like living here, and I'm finally being given the love that people like you denied me in the future! I'll never go back to a world that hates me!"

"You know what?" Anna whispered, glancing down at the cover and lifting it up again in shock. "Another part of that actress's quote shifted when you just said that. Now it says, ' _I still think that Autumn's sister coming into the past with the cover of the movie I was watching felt kind of corny, and she probably should have gone back to the future once everything was said and done. You know, to maybe work things out or change the future?'_ It leaves off there, Autumn, but after hearing it and realizing everything I've said, do you still not understand that your actions will affect us? Everything you do, every breath you take, every move you make… all of it is being documented into this movie! You could cause our race's destruction!"

"I don't care," Autumn spat, turning away with a huff. "You're not my mother, and you sure as hell never acted like a sister when I needed you the most. I don't know you, party-lover, so go back to your home and get the hell away me."

"Goodbye, then, Autumn," Anna sighed, slowly beginning to fade. "Sorry that I wasn't a good sister."

"Good riddance, Annabelle," the girl muttered, turning to walk away down the path. However, Autumn jumped when someone clamped a large weathered hand down on her shoulder; eyes going round, the girl whipped her head to the side only to find that she was looking at Bowen. "God, don't do that! You scared the hell outta me, you jerk!"

"I apologize for the fright, but its time," Bowen murmured grimly.

Autumn's eyes widened in recognition to the statement and she instantly glanced back toward the village, knowing that one of the most crucial parts of the storyline was about to happen. However, after sensing her father's discomfort, the teenager took his large hand in her own and comfortingly rubbed her small thumbs over his knuckles. Smiling a little at the silent gesture, the knight pulled her into a hug brushed her long brown hair out of her shimmering eyes.

Holding hands, the two of them set off to join Kara and the others.

The battle was about to begin.

**TXXXXXT**

A cold silence had settled over the countryside, but nothing but the breeze moved.

It was as if the land itself had begun holding its breath against the coming storm of battle. Einon stood leaning over the edge of his castle battlements, golden helm clutched at his side as his breathing became heavy. The king's gaze remained on a small patch of meadow that lay just beyond his castle, waiting for the signal that would tell him that his subjects were really rising against him. Soon, a lone rider on a black stallion rode out of the forest, brandishing a shield emblazoned with a grinning gold dragon's head.

"He dares to defy me at my own gates!" the mad king shrieked. "Look at him!"

A small army of yelling peasants joined the knight on the field as he held his shield high, face becoming determined.

"We will win!" Bowen roared, voice carrying out over the walls of the castle.

"Today your code dies once and for all!" Einon screamed, making to stomp his way down to the army as if he could fight them all alone. His eyes had become wide with insanity and his breath was coming out in short gasps, clouding about his face as it met the cold morning air. He looked like the perfect definition of a madman at that moment.

"No, your majesty! You are safe here! That rabble couldn't possibly storm the castle!" Felton protested as Brock tried to block the king's passage. "By tonight they'll be cold, wet, and tired, so they'll probably just… limp off home!"

Einon relaxed for a moment and scornfully peered back at the army in front of his castle. However, that's when a young girl with unbelievably long hair came out from behind the trees. The girl looked like less than a threat from far away, but her chestnut tresses reflected the light like a mirror and gave those who looked at her an uneasy feeling. Even as the men and soldiers atop the battlement stared down at her, the girl spread her arms wide and a set of shimmering white wings exploded out of her back in a spray of blue light.

Once they folded around her body, the angelic being stood beside the horse as it nervously shifted from hoof-to-hoof. Then she let loose a loud wail that sent shivers up and down their spines. Bowen hefted his shield again and the crowd cheered, shaking their long, hand-held poles. The king struggled against the two other men in a blind rage.

"We're safe here Einon! Remember your father!" Felton shouted; he was wrong because they weren't safe at all. Brock just happened to behind them when he saw the danger; he had just managed to cover the king when a blast of fire shook them, setting several guards alight. Draco soared from the screaming heat wave and flapped around the castle, spewing another fireball at the taller tower. The dragon slayers busied themselves about the castle, shouting words to each other in a foreign tongue as the dragon made another pass overhead, roaring thunderously.

Brock helped the King to his feet but staggered when the man jumped back atop his horse and let out a war cry; with a clatter of hooves, Einon led his waiting army out through the gates of the castle. He spurred the horse into a gallop as they raced across the fields to where Bowen and the others were waiting for them. As the army lined up in it's designated ranks along the hillside, Einon nodded to himself, sure that he had the rebels outnumbered.

Bowen turned to his foster daughter, who stared after the men with her wings spread.

"Be careful, Autumn," the man told her.

"I always am," Autumn laughed, letting her wings dissolve since her turn for intimidation had passed by. Not knowing that Bowen was actually dreading sending her into battle, the small girl darted away from him like a bullet and ran into the forest. Even after knowing what she could do, Bowen couldn't help but feel that Autumn was still a fragile child who needed to be protected from harm, not thrust in the middle of it like a pawn. However, there was nothing he could do: she'd already made her decision and it was too late to take it back now that the enemy was right in front of them.

Once the riders had assembled, Einon drew his sword.

"Lets shear them like the sheep they are! HAAAH!" he yelled, swinging his sword about and signaling for the men to charge forward. When all of the soldiers began riding toward the villagers, Bowen's horse reared with a loud whinny.

"To the forest!" the man roared; acting as though they were really frightened, the peasants turned tail and ran towards the trees with Einon's cavalry following close behind. When they entered the woods, Autumn leapt carefully over a fallen log and lifted her arms, focusing her mind and creating a signaling blast of white light. Among the trees came quick and hushed orders, and the girl smiled to herself when they all began to enter a large clearing. Flicking her arms back, she summoned a spray of water and condensed it, creating a set of pillars and freezing them to her arms before taking flight through the forest like a silent wraith.

It was time to fight: she would make sure that nobody she loved died today.

"I won't let anyone I care about die, ever again," Autumn whispered, running like the wind; the moment she came to the clearing and leapt through the bushes, the fleeing peasants spun around. Holding the long, bare tree branches out like spears, they hollered in unison, causing Einon and his army to come to a stop.

"Halt! Halt!" the king roared, pulling back on his reigns; the peasants let out fierce battle cries as several men swung across the clearing, sprinting around the stricken soldiers as they put their designated plans into action. Each man carried a blazing torch, which they used to light a line of specifically placed moss, creating a ring of fire about the army that Autumn enhanced into a towering wall using her innate control over fire. Once that was done, she lowered her arms.

To put it simply, Einon and his men were surrounded.

"Second line! First flank advance!" Bowen shouted, and from the darkness of the forest came a mass of new villagers who were all armed with bows, swords, and other weapons. Autumn shrieked right along with the running men and women, sending her unique angelic voice ripping across the clearing and sending chills up the spines of the trapped soldiers. The villagers attacked ferociously, running through the opening in the fire wall that Autumn created for them.

Sounds of swords meeting wood, or metal on metal grated in Autumn's ears.

"CHARGE!" Bowen howled, and the villagers responded: the huge, blonde-haired man leapt forward, roaring in throat-tearing rage that sounded insane and uncontrollable. Then it was pandemonium, and Autumn couldn't have resisted helping her village even if she'd actually wanted to run away. A mass of men and women were all around her: running, leaping, staggering, falling, pushing—all of them shouting, all of them pulsing with adrenaline-induced rage and fear.

Spears and swords were thrust at Autumn as she charged forward, but the small girl whirled out of the way and sent ice daggers flying into her attackers' stomachs before she used her frozen swords to stab each of them through the heart. Autumn stiffened when a man's dark eyes locked on her: dark, deep-set, and ferocious. Narrowing her own golden eyes, she let her blades disintegrate and took a fighting stance as he charged.

When he was a few feet away, she dodged the thrust of his sword and propelled herself forward into a flexible handstand, wrapping her ankles securely around the back of his neck and using his own momentum to flip him over her body and onto his back. Autumn remained in the handstand after he was on the ground and used her arms to spring herself backwards, landing lightly on his chest with no effort at all.

Then the girl let her blades reform and slammed her ice blades into his throat.

However, the soldier was twice her size and four times as strong, so her blades didn't kill him instantly; he managed to get his legs under her stomach and kicked outward, sending the girl's light body flying into the fray of fighting men and woman. Autumn instantly let her blades disintegrate and turned the fall into a back-hand spring, coming out of the potentially-painful landing right-side up. However, her eyes turned red with a flash of light as she dodged another sword and sliced off an arm, attacking her enemies with an inhuman shriek of anger.

When another man tried to kill her, the angel swung her leg into a vertical split-kick and kicked him in the jaw, sending him sprawling onto another man's spear and killing him instantly. When four more men tried to kill the girl at the same time, she lost it completely: messing with her was the biggest mistake of their lives. As soon as the first man drew back his sword and tried to decapitate her, Autumn let the blades disintegrate into moisture and dove forward with her arms outstretched, digging her hands into the ground and flipping her legs over her head before springing her feet outward with all the force she could muster.

Which was quite a bit, considering she had inhuman strength.

"HYYYAAAAH!" Autumn shrieked, snarling as her double-footed handspring-kick hit the man in the chin; his neck snapped and he went sprawling into the men standing behind him, all who were currently busy fighting Bowen. Autumn landed lightly on her feet and ducked as the other two men swung their weapons at her, effectively dodging the blows. Before they had a chance to regain their balance, the girl let her frozen blades reform and thrust both fists out, stabbing the two of them through their stomachs.

Both men dropped with gurgling screams as blood spurted out of their bodies.

They writhed in pain and started screeching as their insides pooled around them.

Autumn whirled away as another soldier made a grab for her arm, dancing out of his reach with the light-footed tread of a rabbit before lopping off his arm and slitting his throat. She grabbed another idiot's ankle when he sent a flailing kick at her knee, twisting it sharply to the right and snapping the bone: he fell back with a wild shriek and clutched his foot just as she leapt up and ended his life with her blades. After that, she glanced around with ruby-red eyes at the chaos. Another one of Einon's soldiers unexpectedly charged and lunged with his spear, aiming for her stomach.

Autumn instinctively whirled out of the way, but the spear caught her arm.

In a rage, the angel swung back with the frozen sword connected to her right hand.

He was unbalanced and leaning forward, so the deadly shard of ice caught him on the side of his head, exploding through his skull in a spray of brain, cartilage, and bone. She watched as he staggered and fell face down at her feet, just as another man charged at her with his spear held high. Autumn's eyes darkened as fury surged into her throat; she leapt forward, breaking into a sprint of her own. The girl charged the man like a bullet, and when they were only half-a-foot away from each other, she leapt as high as she could and grabbed his shoulders. Using her light weight to her advantage, Autumn performed a gymnastics bar-spin handstand using his shoulders and propelled herself over his head.

The small girl twisted herself in such a complex way that she ended up sitting on the back of his shoulders with her legs wrapped tightly around his throat. Autumn locked her legs when he tried to grab them and began punching him in the side of the head with a shriek of anger, using the sides of her fists to cause as much pain as possible. Autumn felt a grim satisfaction when he began yelping something incoherent, but she let her sane mind detach from the world as the monster inside her took over. She wanted to inflict pain before she killed him.

The man began thrashing around and screaming wildly, trying to buck her off like a frightened horse as she continued to choke and beat him to death. However, when Autumn knew he was close to passing out, she leaned down, put both of her hands around his neck, swung her legs around to his back, crouched, and pushed off as hard as she could—sending her flying into a graceful back-flip, and him smashing painfully into the ground face-first.

Autumn landed lightly on her feet but immediately leapt as high as she could, bringing her arms above her head before slamming the blades into his back. When she rolled away, her hyper-sensitive ears picked up the faint whistling of something heavy hurtling toward her face and she whirled away from the spear that was being thrust at her. The girl lifted her arms as she spun, bending like a reed in the wind as she slid away from the man holding the weapon.

He stepped forward and swung at her again, but Autumn whirled away a second time and brought her frozen swords down on his helmet. Too much was happening for Autumn to catch a glimpse of what was going on with the Villagers: there were yells, cries, and grunts of effort as men and women swung their weapons at each other.

Aside from that, it was nothing but an impenetrable chaos.

"The soldiers are retreating!" Bowen cried from somewhere in the fray.

"Good!" Autumn cried back, fending off another man who was trying to kill either her or Kara—she didn't know which. The villagers around her suddenly charged forward, stomping over the wounded and screaming themselves hoarse as they attacked with a vigor that surprised her. As the soldiers fell back and left Autumn's general vicinity, the girl tiredly fell to her knees and let her frozen blades dissipate into misty moisture while she slumped forward and heaved for air.

After she'd caught her breath again, Autumn tossed her hair and took off as fast as she could go, running with her comrades—all of which who towered over her. Leaping and bounding like a deer, the small girl once again began to tear through Einon's soldiers with her frozen blades. The shards eventually became so stained with blood that the rippling blue ice looked to be nothing but a gruesome shimmering red until just above her wrists.

Regardless, Autumn slashed at the men with a speed that turned her arms into a blur.

Her savage attacks sent men running from her, screaming for mercy.

The angel didn't chase the ones who repented their sins; her only concern were the soldiers who served the wicked.

She caught brief glimpses of Bowen and Auron cutting down soldiers like toys through the throng of fighters, and once she even caught sight of Brother Gilbert stringing his bow and shooting a man on horseback: the arrow had gone through the man's backside, but he had been shot by the monk nonetheless. Autumn didn't have time to laugh at the comical sight because a sharp sting sprouted from her right shoulder and she let out a squeal of pain. When she glanced up with eyes that stung with tears, she saw that Brock was grinning at her ferociously through the fiery wall.

His sword was red with her blood.

"Come on, Girlie!" the man taunted, waggling his eyebrows. "I'm waiting for you over here!"

"Bastard!" Autumn hissed, stepping forward calmly; the man instantly regretted his act when the fire blew apart like a doorway and she padded through the blazing inferno unharmed. Autumn's eyes rippled like water and became crimson as she advanced with deadly intent, and she was just about to jump at him when a shout came from the middle of the fray.

"Retreat! Retreat!" the king shouted, holding his sword upright and swinging it at another peasant. "Retreat to the castle!"

"Brother Gilbert! It's Einon! Stop him!" Bowen shouted, calling to the priest who was high in the trees on a pre-built platform; Autumn stopped moving and turned to look up at the monk when he strung his bow with shaky hands. Einon, oblivious to the eminent danger that was about to befall him, continued to order the retreat from a few meters below.

"Thou…" Brother Gilbert muttered, sweat forming on his brow.

Einon came to a stop, his horse pawing the earth and it's tail flicking fearfully.

"Shalt…"

Bowen blocked an attack from a soldier.

"Not…"

Kara swung her axe and hit a man in the gut, caught a sword and cleaved another man through his skull.

"Kill!" the monk yelped, letting the arrow fly and closing his eyes to avoid seeing the result of his actions.

When the missile hit Einon clean in the breast, Autumn went rigid and let out a gasp of pain as an unexpected agony lanced through her heart. Clutching her blazer with ragged breaths, the girl instantly leapt backward and sprinted toward the king so quickly that she made it to him in an instant. Before anybody could comprehend what she was doing, the angel leapt forward and ripped the arrow out with a wail of agony—just in time for Bowen to look up and see Draco roaring in pain.

Autumn fell to her knees as the painful burning in her chest eased up a little, but then she glanced up and watched with horrified eyes as the dragon plummeted to the castle below. After a moment, she froze and scrabbled at her blazer, trying to unbutton it enough to look at her left breast. She was startled to see that the area of skin above her heart was glowing, which confused her so badly that it made her head hurt.

Her pale skin was smooth and unscarred, so how could her heart be connected to Draco's?

Even more confusing, how had she been given half of it when Einon obviously had the only available part?

After closing her blazer and clutching her burning chest, Autumn glanced up and looked at Einon; with a pained gasp, the man sat up and shook his head with a groan. However, when he looked up and saw her kneeling in the mud directly in front of his horse, he grinned at her and Bowen's eyes widened with horror.

With a smile, Einon glanced up at the knight before returning his gaze to Autumn, who was sitting in front of him with a dazed expression on her face. It was as if he was sharing a joke that only the two of them understood. Then a thought occurred to Einon, washing over him like freezing water.

"The dragon slayers…" Einon hissed, and with that he whipped the reins about and galloped frantically in the direction of his castle, completely forgetting about his soldiers. Autumn, who for some reason had become dazed, slowly climbed to her feet followed behind him through the underbrush, taking care not to be seen.

_I don't know why I'm following him… but I know that what I find won't be good,_ the girl thought numbly to herself as she plodded through the trees. Many of Einon's soldiers followed behind, some dead on their galloping horses, some horses with no riders whatsoever; but still, the king pushed onward as if his very life depended on getting to the fort in time. As they approached the castle, the pain in Autumn's chest continued to ease and the glow dissolved. Her feet ached from fighting and her body was beginning to tire, but the girl felt that if she managed to get into the castle then she would discover the truth.

She needed to know both how and why she was linked with Draco.

When Einon blew into the courtyard without even bothering to dismount, Autumn vaguely reminded herself to stay in the shadows near the walls. The mad king rushed into the central stone courtyard, the cobblestones clacking under his horse's hooves as he charged. Autumn followed through the archway but froze instantly, heart leaping into her throat: Draco was chained heavily to the ground, struggling feebly against the bonds and his own tired body.

Several armed men stood around him, all of them wearing odd outfits and holding strange weapons: all of them were torturing the confined dragon and laughing as they did so. Draco's left wing was stretched over the side of one wall, whereas his right was pinned to his side; on top of that, blood was streaming from his nostrils and his right horn had snapped. Her friend looked so thrashed that Autumn had to fight back the urge to run into the courtyard and try freeing him alone. However, she mentally shook herself with the reminder that she already knew Draco was safe because of the movie; with that in mind, the brunette hid herself among a pile of crates near the dragon's head.

Her yellow eyes narrowed as Einon approached the captive dragon.

"Stop! I want it alive!" the king ordered in a panic, and the men around the dragon froze. Autumn pricked her ears, hoping to catch any information that the king would lead astray. She watched as Einon breathed something else and tapped the very same arrow that had pierced his heart against Draco's broken horn.

"Oh, no," the dragon panted, shuddering as if he'd been stung; Autumn bristled in anger and shifted forward so she could get a better view, but someone unexpectedly grabbed her by the scruff and yanked her out of her hiding place.

"What have we here?" a sickeningly familiar voice asked. "Is it a spy perhaps?"

"Ow! Let me go, you stupid brute!" Autumn yelped, struggling against Felton's firm grasp when he lifted her into the air by her wrists. The girl instantly began twisting to get free and kicked at him several times, but the man had her in a tight hold and she was so freaking light that it was almost no effort to hold her off the ground like this.

She _really_ hated being small.

"Well, well! What an honor it is to see you again, Princess... perhaps I should just kill you, since you obviously can't help but be drawn back to me like a pest," Einon stated calmly, smirking at her with condescending blue eyes; Autumn merely glared at him with he fiery yellow eyes ablaze with defiant anger, but she winced when she felt Draco's surprised gaze landing on her face.

"I wouldn't try it if I were you," Autumn snapped, writhing and kicking as she struggled to get back on the ground. "I don't know how, or even why, but for some reason or another I'm connected to you and Draco through the heart he gave you! If you try to kill me without thinking about what you're doing, you'll probably end up destroying yourself as well!"

"That's impossible, Little Princess," Einon sneered, not noticing how Draco's yellow eyes went wide. "A dragon's heart can only be given to one person, and that person alone is the only one who reaps the benefits of power. Nice try, though."

"Your claim is not so," Draco rumbled, catching Einon's attention. "When a dragon dies, he has the option to give the entire heart to a being of his choice... but only if the chosen one's life is close to ending. Even though the dragon itself has died, the heart will continue to beat inside the receiver for eternity, completely free of the twisted bond you and I share: it's much more powerful than anything you could hope to imagine. When the receiver of the dragon's heart passes away, the heart will be transferred to the receiver's descendents: it will remain inside the family bloodline for eternity, passed onto the firstborn of each new child."

"Oh, my God," Autumn whispered, body instantly going limp in Felton's grasp as she made a strange connection. "Draco, I was born in the future and somehow ended up here because of my abilities… if what you're saying is true, then… you'll…"

"Tie her up with him," Einon interrupted, pointing to a spot just across from Draco, "and make sure she can't get away."

"Ow! Lemme go, you Jerk!" Autumn shouted, but when Felton threw her forward and the men carried out their orders, the girl fought against them and tried to conjure her powers. However, something heavy hit her in the back of the head before she could focus and it knocked her partially unconscious.

Autumn instantly went limp, struggling to move her hands as they secured a chain-link harness around the small girl's body and held her in place by her long brown hair. Then, for an extra measure of security, the men clipped a heavy chain to her collar so she couldn't break it and escape. Autumn glanced up at Draco's solemn expression with sorrowful eyes before she hung her head, letting her long brown hair slide over her shoulders.

She didn't know how she was going to get out of this one.


	11. Chapter 11

** Chapter Ten: A Night Without Stars **   


"That rat-faced, no-good, dirty-rotten, pig-stealing bastard of a king! This outfit is humiliating!" Autumn wailed, rattling her chains and kicking her feet like a child. Not only was she exhausted from battling, now she was clothed in a much-too-revealing maid outfit that Einon had forced her to wear: he'd managed to get the dress on her body simply because his soldiers had removed her school clothes and dressed her in it without releasing the poor girl from her bonds. On top of that particular humiliation, the angel was restless from lying on the ground and the chains were so heavy that she couldn't even sit up without a wall behind her back. Her muscles ached so badly that she had actually tried sleeping a little while ago, but now even sleep was a pain.

"Don't worry too much," Draco sighed, blinking at her tiredly. "It looks rather becoming on you."

"Who cares if it looks good on me?!" Autumn retorted, glaring at the ground as she fought back tears. "They could have at least let me put it on by myself! I haven't been _this_ embarrassed to be seen in my underwear since the first time I changed for gym class, and back _then_ I _wasn't_ being checked out by a group of men and a perverted king that have extremely unpleasant issues with _sadism!"_

For some reason that Draco couldn't fathom, the girl's inner frustration towards Einon was affecting him greatly—and even though he valiantly tried to hide it, his body was hurting just as much as hers. However, he didn't respond to her claim of anger towards the king for his indecency, nor she didn't expect him to. Regardless of her fury, though, Autumn began to feel guilty for venting her anger out on Draco and decided to take a break on the ranting.

"You know what? Maybe that big-nosed moron could come down here and give us some playing cards. It might make all of this a little more bearable," Autumn murmured, rolling the thought around in her head like a candy. "Or maybe we could tell jokes, or riddles, or we could even sing a song together. I know that dragons like to sing, and I absolutely adore singing, so maybe we could have, like, a duet or something. Bah, never mind… I'm too bored to even _think_ about being bored!"

"What about riddles?" the dragon asked. "We should save singing for when the castle is trying to sleep."

"Good point... but I don't know many good riddles, though," Autumn muttered, flopping backward against the wall. "I only know a few cheesy ones that came from a book back in my time. Plus, I dunno if you could even get most of them because of the futuristic context they have in the answers and questions."

"A riddle is a riddle, no matter where it comes from," Draco pointed out. "I'm an intelligent creature, remember?"

"True," Autumn reluctantly admitted, shuffling a bit so she could look at the dragon. "All right then, let's do riddles."

"Would you like to go first?" he inquired politely.

"Okay, but I'm sure you'll guess this in no time," Autumn sighed, struggling to lift a hand so she could move the black headband back further; the dragon snorted in response, a puff of smoke rising from his nostrils

"Go ahead, Little One," Draco urged, and Autumn cleared her throat.

"I am completely silent when I hunt," Autumn announced, closing her eyes as she recited one of her best riddles. "I can hear a heartbeat a mile away, and all of my weapons are sharp and keen. No prey can escape me once I find them, for I am the shadow in the moonlight. What am I?"

"That's easy!" the dragon said with a laugh. "You're an owl!"

"Okay, then what about this one?" Autumn sighed, brow furrowing in concentration. "If you have me, you want to share me, but if you share me you won't have me. What am I?"

"Well, this is a challenge," Draco murmured, and she smirked when she saw the puzzled look on the dragon's brow.

And so it went: they continued telling riddles to one another until the sun had long since vanished behind the castle walls, but eventually Autumn began to yawn, finally feeling a little tired from thinking so much. Draco was already snoring loudly, but then again, the sight of a dragon snoring like an old man made her grin. Reluctantly, the girl lowered her head and sank into a gentle doze despite her willingness to stay up.

Not long after she fell asleep, though, soft mutterings intruded on her flickering dreams and roused her into awareness. With a small mewl, the small girl struggled to sit up but only ended up rolling on her side since she couldn't move very well. She opened her eyes a little when she heard a familiar voice and saw Aislinn sitting in front of Draco's snout. That's when the girl snapped awake and a jolt of fright swept through her heart.

This was familiar... and if Aislinn did what Autumn _thought_ she was about to do, the queen was going to be murdered.

Or wait… the woman still the angel blood flowing through her veins, right?

Even if she was given a fatal wound, the woman would survive as long as the blood Autumn had injected into her body was still floating around in there. That's when she noticed the former queen was talking to Draco in hushed tones; she seemed to be reassuring him but also agreeing with him at the same time. Tears were streaming down her face and glittering in the light. Draco suddenly pulled upward on his bindings, but he was barely able lift his head from the ground.

"I cannot see! Are the stars shining tonight?" he growled at the woman, snorting when she glanced up then back down at him with sorrowful eyes: his tone had been so sad that Autumn cocked her head, unable to fathom what was wrong. She watched as Aislinn looked at the sky again, green eyes shining with remorse.

"Brightly, my Lord… brightly," the queen whispered, and with a great sigh, the dragon lowered his head to the ground.

"Then let us end it," Draco ground out, casting a glance at Autumn and flinching slightly when he realized that she was awake and staring at the two of them in wide-eyed confusion. Aislinn, who hadn't noticed that she'd woken up, picked up a fallen spear. That's also when Autumn noticed one of the foreign men lying in a bloody puddle.

 _Did she do that?_ the girl wondered in shock, glancing up at the queen as a shiver ran down her spine. However, Autumn's yellow eyes widened in horror when Aislinn took the spear in both hands and hefted it to Draco's crown, pointing it just between his horns and at a vulnerable spot directly above his neck.

"Forgive me…" she sobbed, raising the spear. "Forgive me, my lord!"

"Aislinn, don't! Don't do it!" Autumn wailed, struggling against her bonds and letting out a cry of relief when the woman hesitated for a second. "If you stab Draco, you'll kill all three of us! I'm attached to him just like Einon is!"

Autumn abruptly froze when the king suddenly appeared behind to woman as if he'd been called by her words.

Draco roared at the same time Autumn let out a high-pitched scream, straining madly against her bonds in an attempt to free herself and help the queen. The girl's yellow eyes rippled and became red as she charged the chains with electricity, hoping to shatter them with her powers, but her abilities didn't faze the king. Einon glanced away from Autumn after a moment and turned to his mother, the look of hatred finally bleeding through his façade of calmness.

"I know why you brought me the dragon slayers," the mad king pouted, voice dripping with sweet malice. "You wanted to kill that beast because you wanted me dead, didn't you?"

"No, I wanted to correct a mistake I made years ago when I saved a creature not worth saving," Aislinn chillingly retorted, staring straight into her son's cold blue eyes. When Einon winced a little, Autumn stopped moving and froze with a horrified expression: turning her head to the side, the girl saw Draco grinding his teeth together in frustration, struggling once more against the chains holding him to the ground. Autumn's head snapped back to attention when the king roughly yanked the spear from his mother's hands; she jumped in alarm, but remained as calm and proud as ever.

"How un-motherly of you…" Einon stated emotionlessly, a faint sneer twisting his pale lips. The former queen wordlessly lifted her long, trailing dress and walked away from him with her head held high. She moved with a deep-set determination despite the comment she'd just given her own son. Einon hung off the spear for a split second, then glanced at Autumn—who's face had drained completely of the little color it normally had. Then he looked at Draco, who was writhing with rage, and grinned when he realized both of them were panicking for Aislinn in different ways.

"Aislinn!" Autumn shrieked into the darkness of the corridor. "Aislinn, remember the gift I gave you!"

"She cannot hear you, Little Princess," Einon sneered, walking into the dark hall after his mother with a horrid grin. "However, I'm intrigued to see what good may come of this new development my mother has caused."

Autumn's eyes widened when the man vanished into the darkness, and she struggled frantically against her bonds. Suddenly, there was the gentle swish of something moving through the air and a woman's horrifying scream ripped through the castle. The scream continued to grow more frantic until it finally cut off and died away. Autumn twitched at the sound of the woman's death whine, staring at the black alcove for almost half a minute in stunned disbelief.

She waited for Aislinn to come out looking regal as usual, but nobody appeared from the darkness.

Autumn's eyes went wide and began to fill with light as her breathing sped up, and she clutched her stomach as an unbearable pressure built inside her. The small girl clenched her hands into fists as she stared at the darkness, long brown hair slowly billowing upward; then, with a blinding flash of crimson light, her chestnut tresses hair flew toward the ceiling and a vortex of energy exploded around her.

"AISLINN!" Autumn shrieked, face becoming torn with horror as her powers surged out of control. Draco added to the angel's shriek of agony by letting out an enraged roar, filling the entire castle and making people pause all over.

**TXXXXXT**

Smoke filled the clearing as the fires were put out, and the villagers had gathered around Bowen who was now pacing up and down angrily. He had a bandage around his left arm to stem the bleeding of a wound, but his face a mask of frustration rather than pain. He was terrified because his foster daughter had gone missing after Draco had gone down in Einon's castle.

 _Where in God's name is that idiotic girl?_ the knight wondered, continuing to pace. _She's been missing for nearly two hours now and it's starting to get dark. What if she was caught by the troops? Or worse… what if she went after Draco?_

He jolted and shook his head violently when he remembered her earlier encounter with Einon: that had to be it.

"I go to save the dragon and the angel! Who will go with me?" Bowen shouted at the villagers; none of them spoke and none moved for fear of bringing his wrath upon them all. Finally sheathing his sword in frustration, the metal clanked bluntly against the leather as he spun about. He was already prepared to go alone when he came face-to-face with Kara, who didn't do anything except give the man a short nod. Bowen stared at her in confusion for a split second, but then he walked speedily out of the ring of peasants. A second later, Brother Gilbert hefted his bow and solemnly brought up the rear.

Bowen and Brother Gilbert followed Kara through a maze of underground waterways, the same that Autumn had passed through when she had first been kidnapped. Apparently, Einon had also taken a fancy in Kara at some point or another and the woman had escaped through the same tunnels with Aislinn's aid.

The water reflected dully across the stonework, Bowen could almost feel the weight of the castle above them. It pressed down on the foundations, making him feel so uneasy that he gripped the hilt of his sword more tightly than usual. Kara, on the other hand, moved easily and held her axe at the ready in case the need to fight arose.

The monk was still bringing up the rear behind Bowen, bow strung and shoulders tense.

A loud shuffling suddenly came from behind and the three of them wheeled about to face their pursuers: Bowen hefted his sword and prepared to fight off a fleet of soldiers, but it was only Auron, Hewe, and a bunch of the other villagers who had followed them through the tunnel gate. The knight gave a sigh of relief and went to meet the one-eyed man.

"We have to open the gates, but other than that we're in the clear" Hewe panted furiously. "The rest of us are waiting outside, so go save your dragon and your daughter. If any harm comes to either of them, I'll skin your hide m'self."

"Thank you, Friend," Bowen murmured, grim face lightening up a bit as he inclined his head. Hewe instantly turned back to his group, muttering something as Bowen and his group headed on. Auron, however, silently detached from the original party and followed Bowen with a fierce determination to help save the girl who had set him free from an abusive master.

"It's this way," Kara stated, leading them through a sliding stone doorway and up a staircase. When they emerged into a fire lit room through a gaping hole in the floor, Bowen raced up the stairs with the others—only to come face to face with Einon himself: the king was lying casually on his bed, facing them with his sword drawn.

"Well, well, well! What a pleasant surprise," the king said calmly when they froze. "I expected to see you coming through that passage, Bowen, but I'm quite surprised to see that my second bride-to-be is here as well. Oh, my, and you brought a priest to wed the two of us after you're lying cold and dead on the floor! How thoughtful of you."

"More like to bury you…" Bowen growled through gritted teeth. "What have you done with my daughter?!"

"Daughter?" Einon snorted, cocking a disinterested eyebrow. "Oh, are you referring to my brown-haired pet? I figured you were close to her, but I'd never have guessed you would be so kind as to adopt a monster like _that_ loathsome creature."

"The only monster I've ever known is you," Bowen hissed, bristling in a rage at the word he used to describe Autumn. He had been there when she'd started talking in her sleep during the nightmares, and she frequently ended up screaming at some point or another that she _wasn't_ a monster. The very thought that Einon, the boy he'd once cared for as a son, could call a girl like Autumn a _monster_ enraged the knight so much that he saw red spots for a moment.

"Well, he'll bury one of us," Einon stated gently, leaning forward with a sly look on his face.

Bowen shoved Einon down the stone staircase and back-rolled in after him just as the passage rolled shut behind him. He now stood at the top, staring at the king who lay crumpled at the base of the stairs. The knight trotted swiftly down with his sword drawn, and Einon lifted his sword to trip him. The man rolled to the side, and the two of them ended up in the waterways. Einon came out of the doorway, swinging his sword in great arcs in an attempt to hit Bowen.

The king kicked the knight in the gut and sent him out of another archway and into the first tunnel, sword nearly hitting him in the head. The man saw this coming and rolled to the right, avoiding a swing and sending Einon spinning out of control. Bowen's sword smacked against the stone with a loud clang.

Down in the courtyard, Autumn abruptly lifted her head and listened with wide eyes as her keen ears picked up the sharp clang of metal on metal; Draco glanced at her miserably, still not over Aislinn's death.

"What is it?" he asked, chains clinking to themselves whenever he moved.

"There's a fight going on," Autumn whispered, turning her head. "I think it's Bowen! I recognize the pitch of his sword!"

"You can tell just by the sound of his blade?" the dragon asked, lifting a scaly eyebrow. "Frankly, I'm impressed."

"I'm going to try something dangerous," Autumn stated, face darkening instantly; when Draco gave her another inquisitive stare, she diligently added, "If I let loose and use the full potential of my powers, I might be able to break these chains! Then I could help Bowen and lead him here to free you! It's dangerous to move when I do it, though, so sit still and close your eyes."

"All right… but won't you hurt yourself?" he asked, closing his eyes.

"I might, but if it gets us out of here then it's definitely worth it!" Autumn replied, closing her own eyes and spreading her arms wide despite the weight on them, concentrating on her powers. After a moment, the girl's long brown hair began to billow around her body and the muscles in her back flexed.

When she opened them again, the angel's eyes had gone from fiery gold to a glowing, arctic blue. Her hair fanned out and began to fly towards the ceiling as the fury of her powers overtook her mind; with a growl, the small girl slowly stood up and stretched the chains binding her, then began to twist and jolt around like a fish caught in a net. She pulled so ferociously that the walls began to crack, and many soldiers on the other side of it came to see what the commotion was. Once they got there, however, the sight either terrified them and sent them running for their lives, or brought them with spears drawn and ready. Even though Draco knew it would be a futile gesture to try and kill someone like Autumn Fyre, he had to admire their bravery for standing their ground. Frankly, even he was a little disturbed by the sight of the docile girl going crazy with rage.

Chains and bonds snapped and creaked as her body grew in strength, and she finally broke free with a banshee-like shriek as a beam of light exploded out of her body and sailed toward the sky. The angel snarled and gave a quick tug at the collar around her throat; the chain broke as easily as if she were tearing tissue paper.

Then she shook herself and the chain-link harness fell off like a shawl.

Free at last, Autumn flung her arms out and let the light of what she used to know engulf her; when it dissipated, she was wearing beautiful red and white robes and her wings were spread wide. Her long hair swirled around her body as she eyed the brave soldiers standing before her, but even now some of them were shaking in their armor.

The angel grinned savagely, revealing her inch-long fangs: Draco couldn't watch anymore because the whole scene was about to get bloody, and this was something he'd prefer not to see at the moment. Yet, something astounding happened: the soldiers actually decided to become smart and didn't move a muscle. The men didn't even budge as the angel of death silently walked through their ranks, hair billowing behind her like a glistening cloud of satin. Autumn padded past them all, and as her fury began to die away, the glow around her body faded.  Her glowing eyes dimmed and became their usual fiery gold, and after a moment she glanced around in confusion.

Then she nodded in relief and bounded into the castle.

**TXXXXXT**

Torches lit the stone corridor with a dim, reddish orange flicker as Kara made her way through the hallways, searching for any sign of a possible chamber that could hide Draco. With her trusted axe in hand, she rounded another bend, careful to watch for any signs of an attacker. She came to a short row of steps and hopped down them easily, proceeding towards an archway that appeared to lead outside. As she passed a small alcove, something grabbed her hair and yanked her back.

She gave a short yelp and struggled feebly against her adversary.

"I don't know how you all got in here…" the frustrated voice of Felton hissed as Kara wriggled against the coolness of a knife blade that had been pressed against her exposed neck, "but I tell you this: you're going to give me an answer—ACK!"

Without warning, the man went stiff and fell away from her, hitting the wall. Hewe yanked his sword away as Felton fell against the rock and slid down to the floor in a heap; He was just about to continue on when Kara grasped his shoulder.

"Hewe!" she muttered. "Thank you!"

"Anytime, Missy," the man replied encouragingly, and they both patted each other's shoulders before they parted.

Kara ran swiftly up the stairs underneath the archway and found herself on a lower battlement outside. Cool night air met her face and blew at her flame-colored hair. Seeing nothing of significance but an old harpoon launcher and some huge axes, she made to run through another shadowed arch—only to be shoved back into the wooden launcher with a yell. When Brock emerged from the dark and drew his sword, Kara clenched her teeth and swung her axe at him.

However, he simply ducked and caught it as she missed.

With a snicker, the huge man whipped his sword around and slashed the little weapon in half.

Kara frantically backed away when he lashed at her and ruthlessly tried to take her head off; she dodged once, then again, then a third time when he swung again and caught his sword on the wooden launcher. Then Kara lost her balance and fell to the ground, right next to one of the huge axes. Just as she was struggling to pick it up, Brock halted in his tracks with a look of utter horror on his bearded face. Kara, who was slightly alarmed by the expression took a quick glance behind her and jolted when she saw a girl with enormous feathered wings standing at the top of the stairs she had ascended. The girl's glowing blue eyes shone with a cold inner light, like ice in the dead of winter: Kara cringed away from her in shock.

However, the angel had her gaze fixed on Brock.

"Kara, go on ahead and help my father. I have some unfinished business to settle," Autumn stated emotionlessly, even though her face showed every sign of hatred for the man. Not wanting to stay behind, Kara nodded jerkily and sped through the dark archway that Brock had just emerged from. She was careful and went cautiously to make sure there was no one else to fight, but when Brock made to follow her, Autumn gave a low hiss and whirled in a blur to block the path.

"You're the monster who threatened to kill me and caused my idiot servants to escape!" Brock roared, face turning red with rage as his lips twisted into a snarl. "You're just a little girl, though! How could you have escaped from your prison?!"

"I'm a little girl who was forced to grow up too early because of men like you," Autumn laughed, talking as though she were speaking to a frightened animal that had been caught in a trap. "Oh, and do you remember that promise I made when you pitched me against Auron at the banquet? Well, Mister Brock… I think it's time for me to come for your head."

Brock quivered and shakily held up his sword.

"Demon! I shall destroy you!" he roared, expression going wild with insanity. "I swear on my father's grave that I will kill you, if only so the world can see you for what you really are!"

"Nice… free publicity," Autumn purred, rolling her shoulders with a smirk: without another word, she darted forward and slashed at him with the speed of a viper. Brock screamed and held his sword out, but she simply batted it out of his hand by sending a fierce roundhouse kick into his wrist. Brock whipped out a dagger and lunged at her, but the man was too slow: Autumn dashed out from underneath him and clipped him on the side with her ice shard, and before he knew it the girl had a frozen blade buried deep in his ribcage. He coughed for several moments, gasping for the breath he suddenly couldn't take.

"A-a girl?" he asked, coughing as he tried to right himself; the second he glanced up, Autumn spun forward and took his head off with her swords and his decapitated trunk fell flat on the ground. Autumn shuddered and covered her eyes the moment he fell, trying not to vomit or cry: he may have been an evil tyrant, but she wished she'd never made that promise.

"Promise made," Autumn whispered, turning away with a sick feeling inside her gut, "promise kept."

Now it was time to find and help Bowen.

The Knight's fight had carried them all the way to the top of the castle battlements, and their swords were still banging together noisily. The sound carried to the courtyard below where Draco lay: he could hear the two battling each other and he strained against the chains to catch a glimpse, but it was to no avail. The knight was pushing Einon to the top from a narrow staircase set into the floor, and the battlement was open to the night air. Wooden scaffolding surrounded them, as if it had been left unfinished. Einon delivered another high blow to Bowen, who blocked it and scraped the other sword away.

The king lost his balance for a moment and Bowen placed his sword on the ground to help heave himself up: as if in an attempt to disarm him, Einon stepped on the blade. Bowen lurched and pulled the metal out from underneath the man's foot and the king stumbled backwards. He caught his arm on one of the long wooden railings and was back on his feet, narrowly avoiding Bowen's sword as it sang by his ears. The knight's sword lodged itself in the wood and Einon took his chance: swinging his own weapon he cleaved Bowen's sword right in half with a strange, high-pitched note that reverberated through the cold air.

Now that he was without a weapon, Bowen could only block and parry his enemy's fearsome bashing. Einon forced him to the other side of the scaffolding and knocked him down against a pile of the rock wall that had crumbled away. Their swords rubbed together, creating a sound similar to that of nails running down a clean, dry chalkboard.

"Bowen!" came a distant cry; the knight craned his neck slightly to catch a glimpse of copper scales beneath him. He instantly reached down his left hand and grasped a rather large rock, using it to bash the tyrant king in the skull. Blood dribbled from the wound down the side of the man's head. Einon glared at him wide-eyed as Bowen backed away towards the staircase.

He had to get to Draco since he had no weapon, and Einon was keenly bent on killing him.

 _Wonderful, this is just my kind of vacation,_ Bowen thought, rolling his eyes: clearly he had been hanging around Autumn for too long, since he was also thinking of snarky remarks for these types of unpleasant situations. Returning his attention back to the task at hand, Bowen had to either kill Einon or distract him long enough to reach the dragon. He couldn't kill him, at least not properly.

He had seen so when Brother Gilbert had shot him in the heart.

No, there had to be some other way.

"Bowen!" a woman cried; he glanced quickly to the side and dropped his broken sword to catch the massive axe that Kara had thrown at him. With a wide spin, he faced Einon with his new weapon and grinned when Kara retreated down the stairs after seeing Draco chained to the castle.

 _Good, she can go free him while I take care of him,_ Bowen reassured himself. However, it was becoming a tiresome fight and the knight was not accustomed to the axe. Along with his sore and tired muscles, the axe was as good as a sharp club; he was used to the light movements of his sword, so Einon would pay for having broken it.

"Fool… I'm immortal," the mad king panted.

"Not if I have anything to say about it," the knight hissed, and thus began to swing in wide and blunt swoops while Einon awkwardly evaded them. Bowen chased him to the other end of the battlement before he ducked and the knight got the axe embedded in the wood again. This time however, it was stuck in a frame that swung outwards. After trying to dislodge the axe twice and ending up with unsuccessful results both times, Bowen saw Einon coming at him with his sword and swung out onto the wood.

Using the axe for support, he skirted Einon's blade and the king lost his footing.

With a yell of terror, Einon fell face first off the battlement, tumbling with his legs kicking until he landed on a wooden platform and crashed through it, falling into a waterway below. Bowen sighed with relief, but it was short-lived when he felt the axe that was holding him up giving away. He heard a yell from beneath him as one of the foreign dragon-slayers pointed his bow at him. The very moment the archer let loose, the axe snapped away from the wood frame and he began to fall. Before he could meet the same fate as Einon, Bowen lunged for a nearby rope in the hopes that it was attached to something solid. It was, in fact, tied to a colossal basket full of large boulders, most likely more material to finish the tower he was dangling from. The basket and his body weight acted as a pulley system—and since he was relatively heavier than the basket, the knight dropped at an alarming rate.

Bowen landed on a stone walkway where another one of the foreign slayers had just climbed a ladder with a gleeful laugh. The black-haired knight, with his axe in hand, fended off the strange attacker as they both fought to push one another off the walkway. He heard the hum of the rope as it suddenly came down, bearing the weight of all those rocks. Positioning himself so that his attacker was right in the line of fire… the basket clattered onto the man's head.

Suddenly there came a shout: the archer had his bow trained on Bowen and was preparing to fire.

When Draco breathed in and launched a ball of flames down, it bounced upwards and hit the man in the back. He screamed and flailed his arms widely before dropping down the other side of the wall he was on. Bowen leapt down from the walkway and ran towards the dragon, who twisted and pulled at the manacles about his head and claws. Just as the knight was beginning to force one of them open Draco growled with urgency and halted the man's actions.

"Now! It's you, Bowen!" Draco barked, golden eyes steely; the anger in his voice frightened the knight a little, but he continued unchaining the creature. "It's you that has to do it!"

"What are you talking about?" the man asked incredulously, still unbinding him. "Stop acting nutty!"

"As the Heart binds me and Einon in life," Draco snapped, growling as Bowen reached for the chains, "it binds us in death!"

"That's… not… true!" the man spat through clenched teeth, allowing the dragon to aid him in removing the chains by pressing his head down and allowing them to slip off.

"You've seen that it is!" Draco explained, glaring at him with flinty yellow eyes; Bowen wished he would stop talking in riddles and just make sense for a change. "Through the Heart we share each other's pains and powers, but in my half it's the life source for the both of us! For Einon to die, Bowen, you must kill me and you need to do it quickly! Do it before Autumn comes back and sees what happens to me! You have to hurry so she won't suffer they way I know she will!"

"What on earth are you talking about?!" Bowen demanded angrily, managing to shoot only a single glare at the dragon before all of the dynamite the villagers had created under Autumn's instruction went off with a deafening crack.

Meanwhile, the girl in question had somehow gotten lost among the spires of the castle.

At first she had been able to hear Bowen's fight with Einon and had followed those sounds, but now she couldn't hear anything but the patter of feet in the halls as the villagers ran around like crazy chickens with their heads cut off. Then, out of the still night air came a shrill yell, then there were several deafening blasts as explosions rocked the air, and a lot of discordant howling followed it before the sounds faded away.

 _That was from the courtyard,_ Autumn realized, and with a frantic expression, she turned tail before running toward the unpleasant sounds. The angel came out on a balcony overlooking the courtyard, so she clambered onto the railing and spread her wings. Her shoes slipped on the stone prematurely, so she launched herself from the railing and soared down to the ground, flapping to lessen the impact of her landing.

Bowen was standing in the cobblestone courtyard, arguing with Draco.

"What the heck are you two doing?!" Autumn cried, darting up until she was standing beside Bowen. "We have to get going!"

"We would be going if I knew what the hell he was rambling about!" Bowen ranted, and Autumn paused for a second with a blink of amazement, feeling almost positive that she'd seen actual steam coming from the knight's ears. After a few moments of blinking the odd sight away, the girl threw a questioning gaze at Draco and went cold inside.

"What's he talking about?" Autumn asked worriedly, glanced between the two males. "Guys, what's… what's going on?"

"Einon cannot die unless I die as well!" the dragon boomed fiercely; he was obviously becoming frantic.

"Einon is dead!" the knight protested, indicating to where Einon had fallen. "No one could have survived that fall!"

"He lives!" Draco roared, rattling the walls and making Autumn flinch: she was getting a bad feeling inside her chest, and she inadvertently glanced at the water where she remembered the King coming out of it during the movie. She could picture it happening right here... could picture watching Draco die right in front of her.

Shaking his head, Bowen refused to see the truth.

"It doesn't matter!" Bowen protested, refusing to see the truth as he shook his head. "Don't you hear it? Our rebels have stormed the castle, so Einon has been beaten whether or not he's dead or alive! Don't you see, Draco? We've won!"

"You will never win until Einon is destroyed, and to do that you must destroy me!" Draco hissed, voice cracking at the end of his speech. "Do you not understand what I am saying? Now the child we adopted must see it because of your hesitation!"

"Guys, stop," Autumn whispered, clutching Bowen's hand and Draco's horn as fear lanced through her heart. "Don't do this, please! I don't want to lose anybody else! Draco, there has to be another way! You can't die and leave me all alone!"

"I'm sorry," the dragon murmured, tone softening immensely when her frightened yellow eyes filled with tears. "However, there is no other choice except for my life to end, and I want Bowen to be the one to do it. I was hoping that he would get the message before you arrived so you wouldn't have to see such a thing, but he is being stubborn and will not heed my words."

"Damn right," the knight retorted, refusing to be convinced.

"Once you swore that your sword and service were mine!" Draco snarled, turning his eyes on the man. "To call when I had need of you, to ask what I would of you, and to help me when I was in need. I hold you to your vow, knight!"

"Stop it!" Autumn finally wailed, letting go of Bowen's hand and wrapping her arms around the dragon's muzzle to prevent him from speaking any further. "Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it! No more, Draco! You can't die! There has to be another way to end this, there just has to be! I know there has to be a reason I came to the past, but if I don't do anything to save you, my heart will break! Please! Don't die! Draco, don't! You can't!"

"Autumn, there is nothing we can do! This is the only way!" Draco protested in a muffled tone, but then he suddenly went rigid and wheeled his head around as the sound of approaching footsteps entered the area. "He's coming! Strike before it's too late!"

The small brunette whirled around and protectively spread her arms when Bowen hefted the axe, but instead of aiming at Draco he glanced toward the spot the steps were coming from; a swift shadow passed through the firelight, and Autumn caught a glimpse of red hair. Seeing that the threat was gone, the knight once again turned again to look at the dragon.

"You are the last!" Bowen choked out. "I can't do it!"

"My time is over!" the dragon snapped. "Strike!"

"You are my friend," Bowen whispered, taking a step forward; Autumn watched in horror, eyes just as wide and afraid as the day her puppy had been murdered right in front of her. That afternoon had been the beginning of this journey, the start of her life with the people in front of her… but how could it end like this? How could it end in the very same spot it began in?

How could it end with a murder?

"Then as my friend, strike!" Draco rumbled, finally losing his patience. "Please!"

"I can't," the knight replied, backing away and turning around as if to leave; a semblance of burning sympathy crossed the dragon's brow, but it only lasted for a split second before it was replaced by anger.

"Then I will _make_ you…" the dragon spat, giving a trembling roar and clawing at the air where Bowen had just been. He rolled away with a yell and came to face Draco. A sudden rush of wind and two rivers of fire shot from the dragon's nostrils, engulfing both Autumn and Bowen in a raging inferno. "Fight back dragon slayer! Defend yourself!"

They didn't see Brother Gilbert come from the door above the flames; Kara shook her head in shock and Autumn clenched her teeth as waves of heat blasted her hair back. Bowen showed no fear and stood still as a stone. When Autumn began to cry he placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder, silently confident that Draco wouldn't actually harm them. Even though his hand comforted her a little, Autumn still continued to cry as the fire columns ceased. Bowen grasped the axe with his hands as if to use it, but when Draco gave a satisfied growl he tossed it aside.

"PICK IT UP!" Draco roared, making the small brunette flinch.

"Stop it! Stop it, please! I'm begging you, both of you, just stop fighting!" Autumn finally wailed, and even though Draco felt a stab of pity for the frail girl, he couldn't become distracted. With difficulty, the dragon ignored her pleas for them to stop and glared at Bowen: the knight was eyeing the axe with a cold demeanor from behind his glasses.

"Pick it up!" Draco roared, making Autumn cringe away from him even more.

 _I'm such a coward,_ the girl thought silently, covering her face with both hands as the tears began to fall. _Why can't I do anything for Draco? Why can't I save him? How can someone like me have so much power yet be so helpless?!_

There was suddenly an abrupt squeak from the other side of the yard, and Autumn glanced up to see that Einon was standing behind Kara: he was completely drenched and was holding his sword against Kara's throat.

"Move and she dies!" he spat, pale blue eyes glinting with the fire of insanity.

Getting an idea, Draco twisted around and bit his own forefoot; this caused Einon to scream in pain and drop his sword as his own hand convulsed. Kara nimbly leapt away to avoid a second capture, but the king hissed with rage and drew a small dagger. Everything began to slow as the time around Autumn's mind went into overdrive.

She watched with huge eyes as Bowen hefted the axe, unsure whether to swing it at Einon or Draco; Einon began running in exaggerative-like motions towards the knight; Draco lifted himself up and met Bowen's own fearful eyes with his own; Kara covered her eyes and hastily turned away. Autumn, who was watching everything, turned to look at the dragon when he pulled back a flap of scales on his chest to expose his heart; Bowen looked back at Einon and felt his knees go weak. Then the king was upon them, lifting his dagger to kill Bowen. Autumn darted forward and tried to stop everything with an outstretched hand, but Bowen swung… and the axe collided.

Straight into Draco's beating heart.

Autumn stopped moving and her eyes widened to the size of saucers as a ripping sensation tore into her breast, making her muddled thoughts scatter into nothing. Her shining golden eyes went round with shock and pain as the force of an unexpected blow knocked her backward. Autumn managed keep her footing despite the sense of agony descending upon her, but now there was a heavy pressure building inside the left side of her torso.

After the girl caught her balance, she slowly and very shakily managed to look up Einon: the king was enduring something similar, his run and stance thrown off by an unseen blow as well. Bowen grabbed the mad king's wrist and twisted it so he was disarmed, then threw the king to the ground.

Einon twitched horribly before his body went limp.

The loud, steady beating of an unworldly heart filled Autumn's ears as she staggered back a step, clutching her chest with both hands as she let out a shaking, nearly inaudible gasp of pain. She looked up at the star-filled sky with a frightened expression when her heart palpitated, sending an electrical sensation of agony shooting throughout her entire body. Her eyes went blank with shock as the life in them began to disperse.

She limply began to fall toward the ground in what seemed like slow motion to her clouding mind.

Her eyes stared vacantly ahead at nothing as her thigh-length hair billowed around her frame like a rippling chestnut cloud; her slender arms slowly stretched out toward the sky as her small body fell—seeming to be calling to the heavens as her red school skirt and blazer fluttered in the wind caused by her descent to the ground. When Autumn's body finally slammed into the cobblestone, her small hands seemed to ricochet a little as her hair fell across the ground like a glistening blanket; visions began to overtake her mind soon after, sending her mind into another place.

"A-Autumn…?!" Kara choked out, looking panicked as she raced toward her.

"Mommy?" Autumn called in a little girl's voice, yellow eyes unseeing. " Did I finally die…? Am I in heaven now?"

"No, honey, it's me!" the woman whispered, watching as the girl's deadening eyes moved to look at her. "It's Kara!"

"Oh… Maki," Autumn whispered, staring up at the woman with a loving smile as blood began to trickle down the corner of her mouth and pool in her long hair. "Hey, Maki…? I'm sorry for causing you so much trouble… I just wanted you to love me, that's all… but it was my fault you died, and I'm sorry... I'm so... sorry..."

Before the woman could respond, Autumn's large eyes became blank and she stared ahead unseeingly.

"Autumn?!" Kara cried, shaking her without result. "Autumn, wake up! Say something! Bowen! Bowen, help! Help!"

"What is it?" the man droned, turning around and staring at the redhead with deadened eyes. However, when he saw his foster daughter lying on the ground with her eyes staring vacantly at the sky, something inside him snapped into alarm mode and he bolted over to her side in a second. "Autumn?! Kara, is she okay?!"

"I don't know!" Kara squealed angrily. "She collapsed right after Einon did! My God, she's not even breathing!"

"She collapsed when Einon did?" Bowen whispered, eyes going horribly blank as he remembered something.

Face contorting with fear, Bowen pressed a hand against Autumn's chest and felt for a heartbeat: there was only chilling stillness that made his mind go numb. Somewhere in the distance, a church bell tolled off the hour in long, mournful peals—signaling it was midnight. It had been a long, long time since Bowen had felt sorrow, but right then he was struck with a sense of loss that cut deeper than Einon's betrayal ever had.

Death had embraced the only two beings he'd ever come to care about after years of being alone, and now he was once again forsaken to the solitude he'd left behind. Bowen woodenly glanced over his shoulder to see that the dragon was lying down in a hunched position, head lolling sleepily to the side with his eyes half-lidded. He nodded to both of them, a smile playing at his mouth as if he was reassuring them.

Bowen felt his heart lurch as he lay down his magnificent copper head, closing his fiery yellow eyes forever.

Draco, too, had finally fallen still, forming a terrible triangle of death: his angel, his dragon, and his prince were gone.

Bowen remained frozen to the ground, staring out at nothing as his mind went numb with loss. Emotions flooded through his heart, unanswered questions threatening to muddle his mind. Above it all was the ever-crushing weight of guilt, remorse, and agony building up inside his chest.

The only thing that kept the man from losing his mind was the sound of his own breathing. A loud clang suddenly echoed behind Kara and Bowen: the villagers all rushed in through the main gates with loud war cries that slowly died away into silence upon witnessing what had occurred. Then the queen, with a trail of blood staining the front of her flowing white dress, stumbled out into the open and froze as she took in the scene. Bowen slowly turned to look at the stunned expressions and realized that everyone appeared to have the same question hanging on their mouths.

"Why?" Kara whispered, hanging her head and pulling Autumn's body close to her chest. Bowen slowly knelt and lifted the girl into his shaking arms, long black hair swirling around as he did so. With jerky movements, the former knight knelt before the dragon's muzzle with his fallen daughter and placed his hand on the rough scales of his nose: his angel and his dragon were now sleeping together for eternity, and that fact had left him a broken man.

"What now, Draco?" he murmured, removing his glasses and hanging his head as tears began to brim and spill over. "Without you and Autumn, where do we turn?

The man slowly knelt down and placed a goodbye kiss to his daughter's lips, trembling as he began to cry.

Without warning, the dragon's body vanished and a sparkling cloud of golden light surrounded them. Kara gasped and Bowen jumped back as Autumn's body began to glow with the same yellow light, long brown hair flying towards the sky as a roaring gale exploded around her immobile form. The golden light swirled into the vortex that had encircled the girl's body, and above her chest something began to take shape.

The villagers watched with wide eyes as a full, glowing heart began to form… and with a crack of thunder, the heart vanished into Autumn's body and began beating again. Kara jumped when the girl took a breath and began to cough hysterically, face scrunching up in pain as color slowly began to return to her cheeks. Bowen glanced down at the breathing girl with a shocked expression when she shivered slightly and her sparkling yellow eyes fluttered open. The second she blinked at him, a voice resounded in the minds of everyone present.

_"To the stars, Bowen… look to the stars…"_

The voice sounded content, and they all watched as the dragon's glittering, brilliant soul rose up into the night sky to join it's brothers and sisters in the constellation for which it had been named after. The stars broke from their usual formation and surrounded the swirling mass of gold light until they all became as one, a writhing mass of gorgeous brilliance. With a silence that could only come with the birth of a new star, they all burst apart, spraying about the sky like an amazing firework.

Forming the shape of a dragon in the sky, they re-assumed their positions from before, now with one extra twinkling light right at the tip of the dragon constellation's head.

It glimmered brightly and Autumn wept, hugging Bowen fiercely as she cried.

Draco was home at last.

However... Autumn had no idea where she would truly belong now that he was gone.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Eleven: A Daughter's Last Goodbye **   
****

Bowen numbly let Brother Gilbert take the lead as he and Kara sang their praises to the villagers. It was the night after the great battle, the night after Einon had finally been destroyed, the night after he had almost lost his daughter for delivering his only true friend's deathblow. Grief waved over him as the rebel villagers who had joined him in the fight yelled and cheered, celebrating as the three horses made their way among them.

Fires of victory burned bright and strong on torches that lit the town square; Kara nudged him as she slid off her horse. He dismounted the stallion that had carried him through all of this, but he noticed something distant in the beautiful creature's eyes. Apparently, Bowen wasn't the only one who missed the presence of the great beast who had walked with them. After looking at those sad brown eyes, he chanced a glance at his foster daughter only to cringe for the hundredth time: she still had the haunting look of emptiness on her face.

Ever since Draco had been killed, Autumn hadn't said a word to anyone. Kara had tried to reassure him that her condition would get better over time, but he wasn't so sure about that anymore. It felt to him as though something inside the girl's consciousness had shattered when the dragon had died, but whether it was her vigorous spirit or her love, he didn't know. All he knew was that something precious had been broken.

Bowen could barely take his eyes off his daughter to take the time to look around. Many of the villagers came to congratulate him in yesterday's battle, so he forced as kind of a smile he could manage and said a few strained words. Then he sat at the edge of the square, watching the little girls—who had helped their grandmothers tie feathers on arrow shafts or sew extra clothes into padding for their fathers and brothers—dance around a roaring bonfire.

Slowly and in groups of one or two, people joined these girls in the joyous dance: warriors tugged their wives into it, elderly women grabbed hands with friends, and soon the entire village was spinning and dancing around the fire. Kara stood from her seat beside him and tugged for him to join, but he shook his head and turned away. Autumn continued to sit vacantly beside him: the women of the village had dressed her up beautifully and styled her thigh-length hair, but she had shown no emotion while they fawned over her glossy chestnut tresses.

When Brother Gilbert wove his way to the center of the spinning circle, people backed away and sat down: slowly, the monk began to recount the events rising up to Einon's downfall. When he got to the point of Einon's and Draco's death and explained how Autumn's near tragedy had happened due to her being from the far-distant future, he told the listening villagers what had happened to cause the link between the three fated beings.

Then he paused for a moment, and everyone bowed their heads.

"Draco was the last of a magnificent race, borne of the most dazzling creatures," the monk mournfully recited. "Now, however, only in scrolls and songs will he live on. So says those who first met him at the beginning of this adventure. Now we can say goodbye, for those who will never know of this battle except in stories can say that was all he was… but those of us who were so lucky to even catch a glimpse of him, only we will know what he was really like on the inside."

Brother Gilbert paused, not sure how to go on.

"We'll remember him as a brave fighter, but also as a good friend who was there when you needed him," Kara whispered solemnly, smiling as tears stained her green eyes. "He was extremely funny when the tension needed breaking, and he was always there to show us the wrongs from the rights. Draco gave us courage, hope, and a reason to fight for what seemed like a worthless cause. Take a look at yourselves and look where we are now: we are free… and it is because of his sacrifice."

Kara's voice broke slightly, and several people repeated her words in agreement.

"Dragons were the one creature that, if you told me a week ago I would have been fighting alongside, I would have laughed and never believe you," Hewe stated from his seat. "Now, if I could, I'd jump at the chance. I'll never forget him after all of this… Draco was the one who gave me reason to go through with this, a noble beast putting his life on the line for our sake. Anyone who remembers the old tales would say it was dishonorable, but I say it was the chance of a lifetime… no, an _eternity._ That's how he would want us to remember him: someone who was there when you had need."

Then Bowen and Autumn finally took their places.

"Draco was a great friend, and that is all he wanted to be seen as: a friend," Bowen stated, turning to the north by the cliff where Draco had once stood, and the noble dragon's constellations shimmered and glowed in the light. "Both the Pagan and Christian faiths bind us to certain beliefs about where we should turn in times of trouble, but on nights where fires have died and candles no longer light our rooms, what shines brighter than any light we could ever know? The stars... we should look to the Stars, because that is where our friend is now."

A few people were weeping audibly now, but the majority of the crowd turned to look at Autumn, who was the only person present who had yet to speak of their fallen friend. Bowen glanced down at her with a hopeless expression, but he was startled to see that she was already looking at the famous star constellation, Draco: those glittering yellow eyes were full of such raw pain that Bowen's expression cracked and he nearly wept.

"Words," Autumn croaked out, turning to look down at the crowd with tears in her eyes. "They can't describe what I'm feeling right now, and they never will. That's why I haven't spoken since Draco died. I want to reveal a gift that he and I both shared, something we both loved immensely. Just know that this comes from my heart… and that he lives on inside it."

"Go on, then," Bowen whispered, nodding and drawing away as the brunette folded her small hands between her breasts and closed her eyes. The entire crowd watched with riveted expressions, waiting to see what she would do as a cool breeze swept across the starlit glade and rippled through her long brown hair. Autumn tilted her head back as a golden glow began to form high in the air, shining down on her like a gateway to heaven as she focused her emotions and created an orb of sparkling water. With a single tear shining under the light of the moon, Autumn Fyre began to sing.

**_"To the Dragon gold in the sky so blue… did you see me... as I saw you?_ **   
**_Soft darkened eyes... haunted by dreamless sleep…_ **   
**_Was it your ghost I saw in the mirror?"_ **

**_"You reached out to touch me, dearest dream of mine..._ **   
**s _o, open your eyes; say you're alright._ **   
**_The mirror shattered at the softest touch; is there a soul beyond the shards?"_ **

With the completion of the first two verses, a warm glow erupted in the air around Autumn's body and the sound of violins, strings, harps, and tambourines filled the suddenly-silent crowd surrounding the bonfire. Not only that, when she started to sing the next verse, her voice was multiplied by four and she harmonized with herself using her innate powers.

**_"Warm tears sting my eyes… as all of these sweet memories... flood back... to me._ **   
**_Reminiscing now, the sun has set beyond the cruel mountain range…_ **   
**_yet, I'm still here…"_ **

_'It's dark now without your light,'_ Autumn whispered silently as she sang, tickling people's minds memories of her times with Draco and Bowen were suddenly projected into the open air like holograms.

**_"Begging your heart to beat…"_ **

_"Father, open your eyes,_ " Autumn begged silently, and memories of her past swamped the villagers. Horrors and happiness alike flashed through people's minds with that simple plea, and several of the peasants gasped in shock.

_**"My existence is not the same…"** _

" _Believe in me…_ " Autumn silently commanded, sending more images of her times with Bowen, Draco, and Kara into the minds of everyone present—even Bowen and Kara themselves, seen through her eyes.

**_"Without you, dear…"_ **

" _Believe that I love you…"_ Autumn concluded, sending a wave of undying emotion surging into people's hearts. Her sadness and sorrow mixed with the powerful feeling of adoration created a bittersweet feeling that made people want to smile and cry at the same time. By that point, in fact, several more people were really in tears—even some of the men.

  
**_"You shut your eyes and gave into that light: your magnificence... was lost in eternal night._ **   
**_Just when I'd realized the error of my ways, you slipped between my fingertips.  
_ _I was a fool... to dwell in all my pain; I was so lost that I never noticed what I'd gained…_**   
**_My sorrow only grows if I try to forget… that you are an eternal part of me."_**

As Autumn finished the second half of her verses, she opened her shimmering golden eyes and stared at the stars as her wings slowly began to appear, swirling into existence with a spray of blue sparkles that spiraled up into the night sky. Tears started streaming from her eyes and trickled down her cheeks like miniature waterfalls as she continued to sing, staring at the stars through blurred vision. She lifted the glowing ball of energy in her hands as the shifting colors and sounds increased in intensity. Tears streamed freely as she offered her gift to the stars, hoping that something would happen... something would show her that Draco was happy wherever he was.

**_"A sweet lullaby... is clasping my fragile heart and whispering your name…_ **   
**_A soft embrace in my sleep: is this a dream or is it yet another nightmare... of thee?  
If so, don't let it end!_ "**

_"It's cold now without your touch…"_ Autumn whispered silently

_" **Just wait on the other side…"**_

" _My Dragon, My Friend, my father..."_ Autumn stated silently, voice cracking with grief as she continued to sing. " _Rest in peace…"_

**_"And I will slumber deep…"_ **

" _Don't let me forget you…"_ Autumn silently pleaded, staring at the sky as her tears continued to fall like diamonds.

**_"I'll see you… soon…"_ **

With the conclusion of her song, Autumn allowed the energy ball to absorb the magic she'd weaved into the air before she lifted her hands and allowed it to drift towards heaven. She and almost every other person in the crowed watched it rise slowly into the night sky, gazing at it as the shifting energy swirled with multicolored blue light. Finally, the girl turned her head away with a choking sob and walked away from the bonfire, covering her mouth as every single person began to weep; one by one, all of the villagers began to cry. A mutual understanding of what Autumn had been put through after Draco's death had befallen everyone.

"That…" Kara croaked, wiping her jade green eyes. "That was… I don't even… she's hurting so much, Bowen."

"I know," Bowen whispered, staring after Autumn with a helpless expression. "Her heart… even if it was Draco's... was broken."

Far away from the group, a crying teenaged girl was huddled into a little ball... a girl who was so lonely that she felt as though a void were consuming her soul.


	13. Chapter 13

 

 

** Book One Epilogue: Happily Ever After? **   


Three months later, cold light gleamed upon the frozen drifts of snow that had fallen over the land.

The sunlight cast shadows of the skeletal trees upon the crystalline frost: every sound was muffled and every plant was sleeping in the cold that had come during Autumn's first winter in the past. In fact, only four sets of footprints betrayed the existence of life: one set were the tracks of two deer that had gone through the forest in search of food, the second pair was from a fox that had come looking for something to eat, had made dirt and continued on, but the last two sets remained side-by-side: one was large and seemed to lope through the drifts, where the other set of prints were slightly more cautious and picky about where they stepped. The owners of those tracks were in the midst of crossing a large, frozen field. One of them was a man wearing thick skins and boots to keep the cold from his skin, and the other was a small girl with thigh-length brown hair.

Autumn looked around with mesmerized golden eyes as she poked her way through the snow, leaping here and there like a little rabbit as she tried to avoid sinking up to her chin in cold white fluff. She stopped here and there to look at something concealed in the snow, but then she lost interest and continued on her way. She was smiling just enough to show she was happy, but the normally exuberant girl was pensive enough for others to understand that she wasn't all smiles and giggles.

When the angel tried to run forward, however, her foot caught on something and she fell flat in the snow with a squeak of alarm. The knight, who had been walking a few steps ahead of her, glanced over his shoulder and laughed when she looked up at him from the snow and blinked: her face was positively covered in cold white fluff. Autumn instantly whined in dismay and shook her head, blowing snow off her mouth and nose.

Then she got up, dusted herself off, and went on walking ahead.

"Autumn, don't go to far," Bowen called, raising his hand with a grin. "We don't know where the ditches are!"

"Calm down!" Autumn groaned, rolling her eyes. "You know me better than that! I could sense a gopher hole a mile aw—"

At that very second, the small girl sank into a drift with a squeak: she had fallen in so much that only the top of her head and flailing arms were showing above the snow. Bowen couldn't stifle his loud laughter when she finally managed to poke her head out of the snow and get a breath of air. Her entire face had been buried for a few seconds, so now she was absolutely freezing. Taking one look at her sticky situation, Bowen lost it and roared with laughter.

"Oh, don't worry about me, Papa!" Autumn wailed sarcastically, awkwardly flailing her skinny little arms. "Go right ahead and laugh! I mean, I'm only stuck five feet in the snow and freezing my butt off! There's absolutely nothing to worry about!"

"I told you so," he retorted with mirth, padding over and pulling her out of the drift with a laugh.

The girl stuck out her tongue and once again dusted herself off, but this time she sneezed the snow off her face instead of shaking it. After that, Autumn resumed moving a little more cautiously. However, when she noticed a large tree near the side of the field, something began drawing her toward it. Silently, without giving any warning to Bowen, the small girl slowly began to walk toward the spot she was being drawn to. Her father, who noticed the dazed expression on her face, frowned and followed her into more drifts and snow banks, helping her when she seemingly got stuck every now and then. When the girl finally made it, Bowen stood behind her and rested his large hand on her shoulder as he followed her gaze.

The tree stood tall and bare, summer leaves long since shed and appearing to be nothing more than a skeleton of it's former self.

Autumn slowly began to walk forward, feeling something inside herself calling out to this place as she fell to her knees in front of the great tree. Bowen came to a halt next to her, warming his bundled hands by blowing on them before straightening his glasses. Autumn tilted her head to the side from where she sat, curiosity showing in the way she held herself. Shoulders tense and eyes wide, the girl put a hand on the ground in front of her before tilting her head back and staring at the sky.

"I know this place…" Autumn whispered, heart skipping a beat as the calling became a song.

Even though it had been months ago, she had been here in the full bloom of summer: the hills and fields had then been as green as the shires of Ireland, not bleached white by Mother Nature's cruel winter. Five months… that's how long she'd been here: five whole months, and already she had gotten used to the harsh life of this world. She had gotten used to the horrible reality that her Dragon-father had sacrificed himself so everyone could live freely. Autumn felt her heart lurch and abruptly bolted upright, clinging to her surrogate father's arm as a tingling vibration erupted inside her chest. Autumn felt Bowen place a mitted hand on her head and soothingly smoothed her hair, trying to form a semblance of comfort.

"I miss him, Papa," Autumn whispered, resting a hand against the tree.

"I know, honey, but he's still with us: his heart is alive and beating inside you, so whenever you feel alone you just look up at night and see him. He'll always be right there… and right here," the tall man murmured, pointing to the now blinding white-gray sky and tapping her chest. "Even during the day you can feel he's up there watching us, taking care of us in ways that we could never begin fathom. He is, after all, a dragon… and dragons are the most amazing creatures in the world."

"Wow, that was so poetic!" Autumn exclaimed, laughing and rolling her eyes. "Really, I should write it down just to commemorate the day that my Papa got a brain! Anyway, yeah, I know what you mean… but I still miss him."

"Do you ever miss your old home?" Bowen asked, silencing her instantly.

"No," Autumn abruptly retorted, glancing away from the man's inquiring amber eyes. "Frankly, I don't think I could miss something that wasn't really important to me in the first place… but... I _do_ wish that I could have a chance to do my last day over."

"I'm sorry," Bowen sighed, hugging her and rubbing her back as they stood there in the snow. After that, the knight and his daughter stood staring at the frozen tree, clasped in each other's arms as they gazed at the sleeping monarch. Then the calling sensation inside the girl's chest became a powerful vibration, literally drawing her body like a magnet.

_What's going on?_ Autumn wondered, feeling her hair rising with static electricity. When a loud noise began to echo just out of the corner of her hearing, lurking where it knew she couldn't fully hear it, the girl froze solidly: she recognized it. The girl's grip instantly tightened on her father's arms when the feeling grew stronger and the sound grew louder; she heard him ask a question, but when she glanced up at his face she realized that she couldn't exactly hear his words. Whatever was making that sound was something important, like faint memory that kept drifting in and out of her head. She could neither read it nor understand it, but it was there just the same. Bowen watched as she slowly let go of his shoulder and staggered forward three steps, looking around with terrified golden eyes before she whirled and smacked into a see-through barrier.

"Ouch! Papa, I can't come back!" Autumn cried, banging on the barrier with all of her strength. "Help! Don't let me go!"

She had made another wish... a wish to do her last day over again.

A deafening sound erupted into the world around them; Bowen jumped and glanced over the hills when a wave of black energy came roaring across the frozen fields, inverting the colors of the world into the negatives as a shockwave of power spread across the horizon. The knight leapt forward and stretched out his hand to the frightened angel, but by then it was too late. Autumn felt the tug before she saw the light, and she squeezed her eyes shut as the wave swept over her. With a shriek of protest, the angel began to flicker right before Bowen's eyes: she gave a cry for help, her form wavering like the image on a troubled pond. Autumn was still reaching for his hand with a silent scream plastered on her face, tears streaming from her large eyes as she tried to get back to him.

He tried to reach her, but then the black wave passed over her; when the wall of energy vanished, his child was gone.

It was the last time he ever saw Autumn Fyre, the angel with the last dragon's heart.

**TXXXXXT**

_"Maki, don't you think it's about time you got your sister up for school?" Eiko Mizuki stated gently, rubbing her swollen belly with a motherly grin. "Breakfast was ready almost an hour ago, and she still hasn't come down... I know it's probably hard for her to adjust to a new life, but we have to support her."_

_"I already am supporting her!" Maki laughed, rolling her electric blue eyes as she spread some marmalade on her toast. "She's my baby sis now! In fact, my boyfriend did something horrid to her yesterday, so I'm planning on getting even and kicking his ass to the moon before breaking up with him!"_

_"Well, why don't you..." Eiko sighed, but then she paused before touching her head in confusion. "Wow... I just had a weird sensation of Deja Vu... it feels almost like I've said this very same thing once before, somehow... but, no, that's not possible... is it? Why does everything feel so..."_

_"Familiar?" Maki asked, chewing a bit more slowly as her eyes widened. "Yeah, I just got that feeling, too... how creepy."_

_"This is so odd," the woman murmured, looking around her kitchen. "What's the date today? I must be out of sorts..."_

_"Huh?" Maki inquired, eyebrows shooting up in surprise before she blinked. "Whoa... I... I can't even remember!"_

_"Morning girls," Yuzuru yawned, thick Asian accent more pronounced due to his drowsiness. "Pancakes for breakfast again?"_

_"Dear, what's the date today?" Eiko asked, shaking her head with a spooked expression. "Maki and I are having some very strange feelings of disorientation..."_

_"Huh? Oh, today is... uh..." the man stated, then trailed off before he paused in wrapping his tie around his neck. "That's odd... I don't remember."_

_At that moment, all three of them heard a low rumbling noise and froze: a split second later, a black wave of some sort passed through their walls before dissipating into nothingness. When the three of them regained their bearings, they were caught off guard by the sound of high-pitched wailing and sobbing coming from upstairs. Eiko dropped her fryer clean onto the floor and bolted for the steps, holding her pregnant belly and hiking her skirt; Yuzuru and Maki were close behind her, but when they opened the door to Autumn's room they were stunned by what they saw._

_The normally uptight girl was wearing a bloodstained school uniform and she was filthy; on top of that, she was covered in what looked like snow._

_"Autumn Fyre, what happened to you?!" Eiko shrieked, shrill voice echoing throughout the house. Autumn's golden eyes flew open wide and her tears froze in place; when she saw her family standing in her doorway, she furiously began rubbing her eyes and stared at them with a pale face._

_"MOMMY!" Autumn cried, bolting off the bed and running right into the startled woman's arms. "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! You're alive! Alive! I never thought I'd see you again after that thing killed you! I really thought I was never going to come back here! Was it all a dream?! Was it just a bad dream?!"_

_"What on earth are you talking about?!" the woman stammered, face going blank when Autumn burst into tears and buried her face against her chest; Maki and Yuzuru both looked stunned by her actions, but when the brunette clung to her and started shaking so violently that her legs gave out, the woman slowly sank down to her knees and rocked her back and forth. "My word! Autumn, what in the world brought this on? More importantly... what on earth happened to you? You're absolutely filthy, and it looks like you have... wait, is that **blood** on your clothes?! Did you sneak out?!"_

_"No, it was my powers! I have powers that I've kept hidden from everyone for years!" Autumn sobbed, looking up at her foster family with a broken expression on her face. "On the evening of this particular day, I ended up sending myself back in time by accident after you and Papa were murdered by some sort of monster that broke in here! Then I lost control when a group of Policemen shot Maki, and I accidentally made a wish that sent me into the past! I know you'll think I'm a freak now, but I really missed you! It hurt me so much to watch you die... you're alive, right?! Right?!"_

_"What sort of nonsense are you spewing?" Yuzuru scoffed, looking utterly aghast. "Autumn, we've known about your talents all along: there was a warning in your adoption papers about the dangers of raising someone with supernatural abilities. Regardless, I'm glad that you finally decided to open up to us, even if it was in an… odd way. Plus, even if you really did go back in time, doesn't it mean certain things haven't happened yet?"_

_Autumn froze in Eiko's grasp as her heart leapt into her throat: those monsters could be anywhere._

_"I'm begging you!" Autumn pleaded, jumping up and down with a desperate expression. "Can we move away from here, please? I know this is sudden and weird, but if we don't get out of here today then a monster will attack all of us! I want to do everything differently than before!"_

_"We'll think about it," Maki finally sighed, awkwardly patting her shoulder before planting a hand on her hip. "Now, Little Miss Time Traveler, you'd better put on your... erm, clean uniform before we're both late for school."_

_"Before we do anything, I want to prove myself... you see, when I went back in time, I learned a lot of things about who I really am," Autumn giggled, watching as her family's eyes widened with a startled jolt: this was the first time any of them had ever seen Autumn smile, let alone laugh. "Hey, do you wanna see what I can do now? A lot of it is really cool, and I discovered that I'm not a human like I thought! I'm actually an angel!"_

_"Well, only for a minute," Eiko chided, folding her arms with a puzzled expression. Autumn instantly flung her arms out, summoning her wings in a spray of fire, conjuring a ball of water. After folding the feathered appendages around her body, Autumn rotated her hands around the ball of water and morphed it into a rose. Then she froze it solidly, changed the nature of the ice, and handed it to her foster mother with a grin. Three mouths were now hanging open, and with shaking limbs the blonde woman grabbed the ice flower. Then, a second later, she stared at Autumn with an awed expression and said, "I'm convinced."_

_"I'll go get dressed and you can take us to school!" Autumn cried, darting up the stairs and into her room._

_With a huge grin on her face, the tiny girl brushed her long brown hair and tied it into a half-up ponytail before slipping on her fresh school clothes. Once she was clothed, Autumn threw on her blazer and grabbed her bag before zipping down the stairs and zooming out the door with a wave to Eiko and Yuzuru, who simply stood staring at the sculpted rose. Autumn let out a laugh when she arrived at her destination, gazing up at it with shining yellow eyes: she was now standing in front of her private high school, one of the seven levels of hell... and just as she was thinking how much she'd missed it, Autumn remembered something and whirled around, catching a football just before it smacked her in the face._

_"Hey, nice throw!" Autumn called, throwing the football into the air and catching it again with a laugh._

_"Whoa! That was an awesome catch, for real!" the boy who had thrown it exclaimed, causing the other boys to stare at her with raised eyebrows. "How the heck did you do that?! I thought it was gonna crack the back of your head open!"_

_"Practice!" Autumn laughed, drawing back her arm and hurling the football right back at them. "Anyway, you should try to be a little more careful when you play ball on campus, okay?"_

_"I'll keep that in mind!" the boy laughed, smiling at her for the first time ever. "Hey, what's your name? I heard that you were some sort of gloomy supernatural weirdo who tends to be totally antisocial, but you seem pretty normal to me."_

_"My name is Autumn Fyre," Autumn called, giving the boy an adorable smile, "and yeah, I do have some totally awesome powers that comes with being me. Maybe I could show you what I can do sometime if you're interested."_

_"It's a date!" the boy called, ruffling his fiery red hair as his azure eyes twinkled. "The name's Kyle!"_

_"Well, I'll see you later then, Mr. Kyle!" Autumn laughed, waving at him before hefting her bag. "I got class in five minutes, so I gotta scoot! Remember to be careful, though: there are lots of girls with pretty faces around here, and they'd just hate to get a bruise on all their little noses because of a poorly-aimed football!"_

_"Gotcha!" Kyle called with a wave. " _Anyway, see ya later!_ "  
_

_Autumn flashed him a coy salute before she ran into the school, trying to get inside before the second bell could ring._

_Happily making her way to the trigonometry classroom, Autumn gave a friendly greeting to everyone she passed and smiled so brightly that people everywhere stopped to stare. All eyes fixed on her face the moment she stepped inside, but instead of shying away like she used to, the girl flung her arms out and greeted everyone warmly._

_"Hello everybody!" Autumn laughed, smiling broadly when everyone froze in shock and amazement. "Let's all work our very hardest today and do good on the pop quiz, okay?! That way we can all go home with a smile!"_

_With a happy expression, Autumn sat down at her desk and scooted in._

_"Yuri, that's the freak we were just talking about!" a girl suddenly whispered. "She's got weird powers! Stay away!"_

_"Yeah," her friend added, sneering in Autumn's direction, "and judging by that weird display, she's probably trying to win you over. Don't fall for her goody-goody two-shoes act, new girl, because she's normally really quiet... she's actually a creepy person who glares all the time."_

_"Yeah, and she's always trying to draw attention to herself," another girl noted, leaning forward and joining the conversation with an annoyed expression. "Just take a look at her eyes if you don't believe me! Those yellow contacts of hers are so revolting it's pathetic! The freak already stands out enough with her reputation, so her fashion style goes way beyond overboard. Plus, she definitely has hair extensions."_

_"Um, excuse me for interrupting, but I forgot to mention that I was born with this eye color when I first arrived in school!" Autumn gently explained, turning around and shocking the hell out of the three girls who were talking shit behind her back. "I'm not wearing contacts, ladies, and my hair length is all natural: if you don't believe me, pull on it a little to see for yourself. Anyway, on another topic, do you girls wanna hang out some time? I could make you something really pretty!"_

_"What could you possibly make that **we** would think of as pretty?" the girl on the left snorted, rolling her dark brown eyes._

_"Something like this, maybe?" Autumn asked, lifting her hand and twisting it as water swirled out of the air. The eyes of all four girls widened in shock as she held the hovering ball above her palm, then began to morph it into an extremely detailed butterfly barrette. Once she froze it into ice and shifted the nature of the water, the now-hardened gem barrette caught the light like a mirror and shifted in hue from blue to amethyst._

_Her creation was perfect and would never melt._

_"How… h-how the…?!" the first girl spluttered._

_"Here, it's for you," Autumn giggled, rolling her golden eyes as she handed the butterfly to the new girl. The new student took the butterfly with an awed expression and looked up at Autumn with dazzled aquamarine eyes, pushing her dyed purple bangs away so she could look at Autumn more clearly. "Take care of it, okay? It's just as fragile as a real butterfly."_

_With that, the teacher walked into the room and Autumn turned around with a smug expression._

_"Sorry I'm late, everyone! I had trouble getting my car started this morning," Mr. Kenton sighed, yawning as he walked into the room and placed his teachers' book on the top of his desk. "Anyway, as you all should know from yesterday's agenda, we're going to be pairing up into partners today so we can start our review for tomorrow's test. I want you to team up with the person sitting beside you and start with the flash cards that all of you should have made last night. Get started."_

_"Hey, let's work hard together, okay?" Autumn giggled, smiling at her partner when the teacher sat down and instantly went to work on grading yesterday's papers. The girl, who looked utterly baffled by what she had done with the brooch, nodded quickly and returned her broad smile with a much shier one of her own._

_"Okay, I'll try it, but I really don't know much about any of this," the girl stated meekly, looking down at the desk in embarrassment. "I don't really know how much help I'll be, so if I start bothering you again, just let me know and I'll ditch."_

_"You were worried about bringing me down?" Autumn asked, shaking her head in shock. "Wow, you really need to get my basic personality right. If you're struggling, just ask me for help and I'll help you: I have everything in this particular class completely covered, so I thought you were always ditching me to be mean and let me do all the work."_

_"Oh, no way!" the girl protested, frantically waving her hands to prove her innocence. "It's just, you've got the highest grades in school and you were always glaring at me, so I… well, I thought you had a problem with being my partner."_

_"Sheesh!" Autumn snorted, rolling her eyes. "I glared because you were making me do all the work! Let's get started."_

_For the rest of the class, the two of them worked on the project together and ended up getting along really well. However, there was also something even better than that: throughout the entire class, not one person threw something at her or made a single snide remark. When they finally finished the project with the flash cards, Autumn continued to talk with her partner and waited until the time when her class would be over. Autumn managed to learn that the girl's name was Tiffany Walt: the girl was really into music—something that Autumn herself was enthusiastic about._

_When the bell finally rang, Autumn laughed and made plans to get together with Tiffany and Yuri after school before she zipped outside. After two more classes had come and gone, Autumn quickly ate her lunch and darted out of the cafeteria. Upon remembering that she'd left her guitar in her fourth-period classroom, the tiny girl sprinted there before it could start. She was already expecting to see Mark Hastings and his buddies standing inside the room, so she took a deep breath and steeled her resolve… then she stepped inside, face becoming expressionless/_

_"Hey, freak, what happened to your guitar? It's covered in milk!" Mark Allen laughed, tossing an empty paper carton into the wastebasket as he and his friends surrounded her. Autumn cocked her head to the side and glanced up at them with a smirk on her face, effectively causing them to raise their eyebrows: she was obviously not being intimidated by them. "Wow... you really are Maki's sister. You're not scared at all."_

_"Nope, I'm not," Autumn snorted sarcastically, tossing her hair in amusement. " _Judging by your smug expressions and the attitude issues I'm looking at, I'd say some immature little boys decided to have some fun by picking on a not-so-defenseless girl._ Oh, but then again, that might just be me overreacting and assuming things that aren't true, like I usually do. Am I right? Just go away before I talk to Maki about what you did, Mark."_

_"Wow, for once I'm actually sort of surprised. You finally said something," the second boy mocked, attempting to shove her forward. Autumn's hand snapped up and she clamped it down on the boy's wrist the way Bowen had taught her, using his own weight to spin him around and pin his arm behind his back. After a second of him screaming in pain, she let go and pushed him into his friends. He whirled around a second later, anger and shock on his face. "What the hell?! That hurt!"_

_"Yeah, and so does my heart, you nasty Pricks," Autumn retorted, folding her arms when the eyes of all three of them stared at her with shocked expressions. "From now on, every time you call me a freak I'm gonna call each and every one of you something very insulting until you decide to learn what my name is. After that, maybe—just maybe—I'll forgive you for everything you've done to me. Oh, and before any of you lowlifes try to put your hands on me, think twice about it."_

_They stared at her blankly until the door flew open and Maki walked in._

_"Huh, what are you guys doing in here?" the Asian girl asked in confusion, staring at the slack-jawed boys and eyeing her sister. She looked at all of them blankly, but then she saw the milk-covered guitar and sighed. "Jeez, Mark! Did you really decide to start picking on my sister? Even after what you did to her yesterday, you still have the gall to be a bully?"_

_"Not really!" Mark stammered, sulking toward the door and walking through it with his friends. "I... sorry."  
_

_"You and I are gonna have a big talk later on today, buster!" the Japanese girl called, shaking her head before she walked over to Autumn and put a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, are you all right? Did my idiotic ex try to do anything to you?"_

_"Not much," Autumn replied. "All they did was pour milk on my guitar, nothing a little soap and water can't fix."_

_"Well, then let's go get it cleaned up!" the girl giggled, giving a salute before she grabbed her guitar and headed in the direction of the bathroom. Several minutes later, Autumn was sitting in the girls' bathroom and making small talk with Maki while the girl cleaned her guitar case with a rag. She'd offered to do it, so Autumn had agreed. "You know what? I've heard you playing this thing a few times, and I'd like to say that you do it really well. I hope it'll be okay once it dries."_

_"That old thing has a lot of endurance," Autumn sighed. "I originally found that guitar in a garbage can outside of an old warehouse, so I decided to give it a new home. That instrument is the product of a lot of hard work, since it was completely trashed when I first took it home. After a new set of paint, gloss, and some new jazzy guitar strings, this old thing was better than some of the stuff that the music stores are selling in the mall."_

_"Wow! No way!" Maki exclaimed, looking at the guitar much more closely. "I thought this thing was brand new! You're pretty serious about your music if you'd go this far to make your guitar so beautiful."_

_"I love who I am and what I do," Autumn replied with a smile._

_However, she suddenly heard a voice whispering inside her mind and froze; tears instantly flooded her eyes at the realization of what she was hearing and began to spill over, but she blinked in confusion and touched her cheeks when the she unexpectedly began to cry. Maki instantly stopped and glanced at her in alarm, obviously freaking out about her sister's sudden change in mood._

_"Hey, what's wrong? Why are you crying?" Maki asked, setting down the rag and coming to embrace her. "Did those jerks really do something to you, Autumn? Are you okay?"_

_"Wow, this is so weird! I don't even know why I'm crying," Autumn whispered, grinning past her tears. "I'm happier than I've ever been in my entire life, so I don't know why… it's kind of a mystery, but… I'm just… so… happy…"_

_However, in truth, she did know: Draco had spoken to her._

_"I heard your song," he'd whispered, "and I want you to know that my heart lives on in you. Look to the stars, Autumn, and feel safe whenever you see me looking down at you. Remember the days you gazed at my brothers and sisters, and know that I am with them now. I love you, Dragon-Daughter, and I have been protecting you since the moment I met you. You are the angel who holds the last dragon's heart: the legacy of my life will live on through you."_

_Autumn closed her eyes and completely broke down as Maki hugged her gently, embracing the brunette as she cried even harder for her lost friend and family. Somehow, she felt as though her world had changed so much that she would never be the same. She had seen so many horrible things that her heart hurt, but despite the pain… she had finally come home. However, somewhere in the depths of the library, an old woman was watching with stunned eyes as a video played on the screen. Nearby was an empty movie case, and Autumn's face was on the cover of it._

_Someone was watching the sole surviving copy of the alternate Dragon Heart movie: Dragon Heart, Autumn of the Angels._

_But that… is a tale for another time._


End file.
